
01ass_^£A33. 



Book 



A , ^4 



OUTLINES 



-OF- 



PSYCHOLOGY 

DICTATIONS FROM LECTURES 
— BY — 

HERMANN LOTZE 



TRANSLATED, WITH A CHAPTER ON 

THE ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN 

— BY — 

C. L. HERRICK. 



ILLUSTRATED' 



MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 

S . M . WILLIAMS. 

L. KIMBALL & CO., 
"print. 



$' 



V 






>" 






23 Je1907 



PREFACE 



The translation of Lotze's Grundznege der Psych- 
ologies which forms the principal part of this book, was 
made in 1882, and it was- expected to publish it at once. 
Circumstances prevented, for the time, the carrying out 
of the plan, but lately a personal need of some small 
text book to use in connection with the study of com- 
parative anatomy in the scientific department of an 
Undergraduate course led to its revival. This circum- 
stance explains why the short chapter on anatomy has 
been appended unnecessarily, as it may seem. It is be- 
lieved that, in its present form, this volume will prove 
convenient: firstly, for use in connection with the 
little that can usually be said upon the physiology of 
the nervous system in the comparative anatomy of our 
ordinary colleges, at the same time furnishing a 
thoroughly reliable foundation upon which to add the 
more extended work in psychology; secondly, as a first 
book of psychology where for any reason the physio- 
logical side does not receive special attention in the 
philosophical department. Of the value of Lotze's 
little work nothing need be said here, the great German 
philosopher is rapidly gaining recognition even in 



IV PREFACE. 



America, while the series of " Outlines." of which this 
forms a part, has been exceedingly well received 
abroad. Attention may be asked, however, to the fact 
that these are but outlines, and embrace but the dictated 
portions of au extended lecture course. Their use in 
the school room implies oral explanation and illustra- 
tion, or, better, they may form the frame work for a 
lecture course which may deal as fully with anatomical 
and physiological details as time permits. It is a matter 
of regret that no English work in this department has 
as yet appeared which is not devoted to the indirect in- 
culcation of a theory (unorthodox or otherwise), or for 
some other reason un adapted to place in the hands of 
college students. Of the writer's part of the work it is 
not becoming to speak further than to express the hope 
that the sacrifice of literal accuracy will be found to 
have been attended with compensating advantages in 
perspicuity. The very forcible and colloquial style, 
which is so striking in the original, is verv hard to 
imitate, and one may be satisfied if the attempt prove 
intelligible. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Introduction - 

PART FIRST. INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS OF THE 
INNER LIFE. 



Chapter First. — Simple Sensations - - 

Definitions — Excitations of Sense 
Nervous Action - - - - - 

Sensation Proper - - - 

Correspondence between the Irritation and 
Sensation ------ 

Duration of Sensation - 
Intensity of Sensory Stimuli 

Weber's Law 

Increments in Intensity - - 
Periodicity of Sensory Stimuli 
Subjective Sensation ------- 

Complexity of Organs of Sense 
Subjectivity or Objectivity of Sensations - 

cond. — The Process of Conception 

Concepts distinguished from Sensations 

Unconscious Concepts ... - 

Memory - - 

Vividness of Concepts - 

Contents of Conception - 

The Power of Concepts - - - - 



Section 


1. 


Section 


2. 


Section 


3. 


Section 


4. 


Section 


5. 


Section 


6. 


Section 


7. 


Section 


8. 


Section 


9. 


Section 


10. 


Section 11. 


Section 12. 


Chapter S: 


Section 


1. 


Section 


2. 


Section 


3. 


Section 


4. 


Section 


5. 


Section 


6. 



5 
5 

■7 

9 

10 
11 
13 
14 
16 
17 
19 
20 



22 
22 
23 
24 
26 
26 



VI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

9.7 



Section 7. Association of Concepts - 

Chapter Third. — Relative Knowledge and Attention . 31 

Section 1. Compared Concepts- -.-.-. 31 

Section 2. The Faculty Involved in Comparison - 32 

Section 3. General Notions 32 

Section 4. Limitations of Consciousness - . - 33 

Section 5. Observation and Attention - - - 34 

Chapter Fourth.— The Intuitions of Space - - - 36 

Section 1. How is the Idea of Space Produced - 30 

Section 2. Visual Representation - - - - 30 

Section 3. The Soul Unextended ... 37 

Section 4. Combination of Discrete Impressions - 37 

Section 5. Origin of Spatial Intuitions Inexplicable 38 

Section 6. Theory of Local Indices - - - -39 

Section 7. Application of this Theory 41 

Section 8, Further Elaboration . .... 42 

Section 9. Unification of Places to Form Space - 44 

Section 10. The Third Dimension ..... 45 

Section 11. Origin of the Notion of Direction • - 45 

Section 12. Single Vision ...... 46 

Section 13. Local Indices in the Skin - - - 47 

Section 14. Function of the Muscular Sense - - 49 

Section 15. Concepts of Space of the Blind - - 50 

Chapter Fifth. — Sensuous Perception and Illusions - 51 

Section 1 Errors of the Understanding Distinguished 51 

Section 2. Illusions of Sight - 52 

Section 3. Secondary Effects of Organs of Sense - 53 

Section 4. Illusory Motions ------ 54 

Section 5. Sensations of Double Contact - - - 55 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Vll 



Chapter Sixth. — The Susceptibilities 



PAGE. 

- 57 



Section 1. Feelings Distinguished from Sensations 57 

Section 2. Source of the Feelings .... 53 

Section 3. Sensuous Feelings - - - - - 58 

Section 4. JEsthic and Ethical Feelings - - - 59 

Section 5. Affections and Sentiments 60 

Section 6. Self -consciousness - - - - - 01 



'hapter Seventh. — Motion 



Section 1. 

Section 2. 

Section 3. 

Section 4. 

Section 5. 



Conditions of Motion 
Initiatory Impulses - 
Reflex Motions - 
Mimic Motions 
Initiative Motions 



Section 6. Voluntary and Involuntray Motions 



63 

63 
63 
64 
64 
65 
66 



PART SECOND. THE SOUL. 

Chapter First. — On the Existence of the Soul 



71 



Section 1. Method of Study - . ... 71 

Section 2. Materialistic Explanation - - - - 71 

Section 3. Construction of Unity in Consciousness 72 

Section 4. Doctrine of Monads 73 

Section 5. Body and Soul - 74 

Chapter Second. — The Reciprocal Action Between 

Soul and Bodv - - - - 76 



Section 1. Conditions of Reciprocity 

Section 2. Inapplicability of Mechanical Analogy 

Section 3. Cause of Correllation 

Section 4. The Link Between Soul and Body - 

Section 5. The Notion of Materiality. - 



70 
70 



Vlll 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Section 2 
Section 8 



PAGE. 

Chapter Third.— The Seat of the Soul - - - - 82 

Section 1. Position ------- 82 

Omnipresence ------ 82 

Physical Analogies Applied to the Opera- 
tion of Psychical Forces 83 
Section 4. Soul Centers in the Brain - - - - 84 

Section 5. A Fallacious Notion of Position - - 84 
Section 6. The Soul and the Brain - - - .86 

Section 7. Partial Truth of Materialism - - . 86 



Chapter Fourth. — The Relation of the Soul to Time - 88 



Section 1. Immortality ------ 

Section 2. Substance as Explaining Existence - 
Section 3. Essential Unity of Nature and the Condi- 
tioning Power of the Absolute - 
Section 4. Source of Permanency in Nature. (Figure 
omitted) ------- 

Section 5. Birth of the Soul - 

Chapter Fifth. — The Soul's Essence - 

Section 1. Meaning of Essence 

Section 2. The Doctrine of Faculties. (Figure 
omitted) ------- 

Section 3. Herbart's Explanation - 
Section 4. The Soul's Acts not Automatic - 
Section 5. Idealistic Interpretation - 

Chapter Sixth. — The Mutable Condition of the Soul - 

Section 1. The Conditions of the Soul's Action 

Section 2. Unconsciousness - - - - 

Section 3. Hypnotism ----- 

Section 4. Partial Unconsciousness 

Section 5. Corporeal Basis of Memory - 



88 
89 

90 

91 
92 

93 

98 

94 
95 

97 

98 

101 

101 
102 
108. 
104 

105 



TAULE OF CONTEXTS. 



IX 



Section 6. Dreaming .--.-. 

Section 7 The Temperaments - 

Section 8. Phrenology ------ 

Section 9. Sensorium and Motoritim Commune 

Section 10. Corporeal Basis of Higher Faculties - 

Section 11. Morbid Activity — Somnambulance 

Chapter Seventh. — The Realm of Souls 



Section 


1. 


Section 


2. 


Section 


o. 


Section 


4. 


Section 


5. 


Sects >n 


6. 



PAGE. 

- 106 
107 

- 108 
109 

- Ill 
112 

- 114 



Animal and Plant Souls - - - - 114 
Diversity of Souls - - - - -115 
Humanity Distinguished by Understand- 
ing 110 
Humanity Distinguished by Reason - - 117 
Humanity Distinguished by Will - - 118 
Freedom of the Will - - - - - 119 



PART THIRD. THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN. 



Structure of the Brain 



125 



Section 1. Cells as Unit i of Structure - - - -125 
Section 2. Origin of Cells - - 126 
Section 3. Three Stages of Growth and Three Prim- 
itive Germ Layers - - - - 126 
Section 4. Nerve Cells and Nerves - - - - 127 
Section 5. Motory and Sensory Nerves - - - 128 
Section 6. Chemical Constituents - ■ T 130 
Section 7. Form and Development of the Central 

Portion of the Nervous System - - 132 

Section 8. Connection Between the Brain and other 

parts of the Nervous System - - - 138 

Section 9. Physiology of the Brain - - - - 141 

Section 10. Development of Sensory Functions - - 143 



INTRODUCTION. 



Sensations, conceptions, feelings, and acts of will con- 
stitute the group of familiar facts which we are accus- 
tomed to designate, although with a reservation in view 
of future discoveries, as the life of a peculiar being — the 
soul. 

In order to fully meet our scientific requirements it is 
necessary, first, through the agency of observation, to 
completely set forth all the individual elements of this 
life and the general formulas for their combination — 
Descriptive or Empirical Psychology; secondly, to spec- 
ify the nature of the subject in which this life subsists 
as well as those active forces and conditions by which 
this life is produced and caused to maintain that course 
with which experience has made us familiar — Explana- 
tory or Metaphysical Psychology ; finally, to give a 
rational explanation why all these facts exist, or, in 
general, the mission of soul-life in the world — Ideal or 
Speculative Psychology. Now since the latter problem 
does not admit of a solution in strict scientific form, 
while the treatment of the first is easily combined with 
that of the second, the question with which we are 
chiefly concerned is this: u Under what conditions and 



INTKODUCTION. 



by means of what forces are the single processes 
of spiritual life produced; how are they united with, 
and modified by each other so as to produce, through 
their combined activity, the total of spiritual life." 

Our course is that offered by the phenomena them- 
selves, that is, we begin with external impressions, by 
which the spiritual activity is excited from moment to 
moment afresh, then consider the manifold internal 
transformations which these impressions undergo, lastly 
the reflex activities — motions or other acts — which re- 
sult from them. 

Only after the enumera'ion of these individual ele- 
ments of the spiritual life is it possible to pass to a com- 
prehensive consideration of the nature of that subject 
which controls this life. 



PART FIRST. 



The Individual Elements of the Inner Life. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 
SIMPLE SENSATIONS. 

§1. We here understand by simple sensations those 
which evince no combination of similar or dis-similar 
parts, and we, furthermore, assume them to be induced 
(as is usually the case) by external impressions. 

In this case we distinguish in the production of a sen- 
sation, as the first process, the external sense excitement. 
No object becomes, by virtue of its existence simply ; 
an object of apprehension; it becomes such only as it 
either itself approaches to contact with our body, as in 
the case of impact, or communicates to the surrounding 
medium motions which extend from element to element 
until at length they reach our body, as is the case with 
sound and light waves. 

In all cases, however, the external sensory stimulus 
is a motion of some sort or other and has no similarity 
to the mental processes which are evoked by it. 

§2. The second essential is that process within the 
body which is caused by the external excitement. By 
their contact with the body these external irritants pro- 
duce manifold changes in the external layers, of which 
we know little, and which we do not need to follow 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



psychologically because they can only become the 
sources of sensation when they reach the ends of the 
nerves distributed throughout the body. In them an 
excitement is produced which must extend through the 
entire length of the nerve-thread to the brain before a 
sensation can be produced. 

An injury of the nerve, which prevents this trans- 
mission, results in the complete loss to consciousness of 
knowledge of the irritations in the peripheral nerve 
termini. 

In what that excitement known as the nervous action 
consists is not definitely ascertained, but it is only im- 
portant in psychology to answer the question whether 
this is simply a sort of physical motion or whether it 
already participates in the character of psychical life. 

Sensation does not simply exist at large in the nerves 
but we must explain just what it is that is affected by 
the sensation. The nerve as a whole it cannot be, for the 
nerve is an aggregate of many parts and, moreover, is 
never, as a whole, in a state of excitement but, on the 
contrary, one part is affected after another successively. 

It would therefore be necessary to assume that each 
indivisible atom of the nerve is a sensitive subject and 
each transmits its sensation to its neighbor until at last 
it reaches the soul. 

The fact that the transmission of the excitement may 
be prevented by alterations in the physical continuity 
of the nerve, as, for example, by incision, shows that 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



this transmission is the result, not of an immediate sym- 
pathy, but of a physical effect produced upon one nerve 
atom by another. 

Then we must suppose that the atom a acts physic- 
ally upon the atom b and, as a result of this action, b 
enters the state of sensation E. Then atom b imparts 
a physical impulse to atom c which thus, in turn, be- 
comes affected by the sensation E, The last nerve atom 
z acts then, in a way entirely unknown, upon the soul 
and now this also is so excited as to produce its sensa- 
tion E, 

It is easy to see that this last impulse, by means of 
which our sensation (which is, after all, the only thing 
of which we really know anything) is produced, would 
have exactly the same result if the nerve atoms exerted 
simply a physical influence upon each other and if their 
own sensations (which are simply assumptions and not 
discovered facts) did not exist at all. Since the idea of 
sensation in the nerves themselves contributes nothing 
to the explanation of our own sensations, and, more- 
over is not demonstrable, while the passage of a phy- 
sical impulse can not be denied, we shall, in the future, 
consider the nervous action as simply physical motion 
which passes from one nerve element to another and 
which does not partake of the psychical nature charac- 
teristic of the resulting sensation. 

§3. The third link in this chain of processes is that 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



condition of consciousness so familiar to all, the sensa- 
tion itself — the act of seeing a light of a definite color 
or the hearing of a sound, for example. 

Of the two elements in this process which we are 
able to distinguish in our thinking, namely the qualit- 
ative content, which we perceive, and the perceiving 
activity by which it is made known to us, neither the 
one or the other is comparable with the nature of the 
external excitement or the nerve process. As accur- 
ately as we may analyze the nature of ether waves we 
never discover in them the reason why they are seen as 
light rather than heard as sound, nor why one sort is 
perceiyed as red and another as blue and not the re- 
verse. Furthermore, however we may combine the 
physical motions of nerve atoms there never comes a 
point where it is clear that the motion last produced is 
not to remain motion but must pass over into the en- 
tirely different process of sensation. 

Vain are all attempts to discover how it is that the 
simple physical motion gradually passes over into sen- 
sation. We must, the rather, be content to state that 
nature has, by one of its imposed necessities, quite un- 
known to us, so correllated these two dissimilar series of 
processes — motions and sensations — (which we are un- 
able to derive the one from the other) that a member of 
the one series always produces a definite member of the 
other. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 9 

§4. It would be assumed that these two series of 
processes would not be linked together without system, 
but rather that similar excitements in one series would 
correspond to similar sensations in the other and differ- 
ent excitements to different sensations. And, when, in 
the series of stimuli, a definite progress, retardation, 
periodicity, or prominent elements occur it would be 
expected that, in some way, all these would find expres- 
sion in the corresponding series of sensations. 

This assumption is but partially supported by exper- 
ience. In the first place, the various classes of sensa- 
tions ('colors, sounds, odors) occur serially one after the 
other, forming no complete system. It does not in the 
least follow because we perceive ether waves as light 
that we must perceive air waves as sound. The same 
is true of the individual elements of the different 
classes. He whose experience of taste and sight was 
limited to the taste sour and the color yellow would 
not be led to suspect the existence of bitter and blue. 

Again, it is only in the case of sounds that we find a 
definite progression in the series of excitements corres- 
ponding to a similar progressive arrangement of the 
series of sensations; the pitch of sounds increasing with 
the rapidity of the vibrations of the sound waves. It 
should here be noticed that the manner in which the 
sensations reflect the variation in the exciting cause is 
itself quite peculiar. The difference in pitch between 
two tones has no similarity to the difference between 



10 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

two numbers, but expresses an entirely peculiar increase 
of qualitative intensity which could not have been ex- 
pected and of which we have no other illustration. 

In like manner the remarkable instance of the doub- 
ling of the number of waves finds a peculiar expression 
in the octave, which is not perceived as the doubling of 
anything but as a remarkable combination of identity 
and dissimilarity between the tones unexemplified else- 
where. 

On the other hand colors, although they correspond 
in their prismatic arrangement to a similarly increasing 
wave-rate, dm not at all arrange their impressions in a 
series of increasing intensity. This discrepancy results 
from the fact that we can only legitimately expect a 
correspondence between sensations and their immediate 
causes — the nerve-processes. The latter, however, we 
do not understand, and are forced to compare, in all 
cases, only the results of sensation with the external 
stimulus upon which, as we saw, they do not immedi- 
ately depend. 

Finally, since our sensations do not form a perfect 
system, it is possible that the realm of sensations is not 
exhausted by our senses but that other animal souls 
may exist with entirely different, although, of course, 
to us unknown, forms of sensation. 

§5, The duration of sensation can be roughly com- 
pared, in general, to that of the nerve process which 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 11 

produces it. For we find, under ordinary circumstances, 
that it never continues longer than the duration of the 
external irritation, unless the latter leaves behind en- 
during effects without or within us, which themselves 
constitute the stimulus for new sensations. 

Strictly speaking, however, an excitement of the nerve, 
once produced, cannot cease of itself but must be inter- 
rupted by active opposition. This is usually furnished 
during health by the continuous activity of the nutrit- 
ive process, by means of which the normal and indifferent 
condition of the nerves is restored and they thus pre- 
pared to impartially receive new impressions. 

Very generally, however, not only when the irrita- 
tion is very severe but particularly in the case of the 
sense of sight, the process may not be rapid enough. 
Then we have continuous or sometimes periodical exci- 
tations corresponding to the well-known illusions, i. e., 
actual sensations, which, if active enough, prevent the 
sense from receiving new impressions. An example of 
this is furnished by the brilliant figures produced by 
looking at the sun. 

§6. Every day experience, as, for example, observa- 
tion of an approaching light or of an expiring sound, 
shows that we are, in general, very sensitive to small 
differences in the intensity of the stimuli of sense. 
They are, however, only perceived as more or less in- 
tense and the moment never conies when we can affirm, 



12 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

from the evidence furnished by the impression simply, 
that one light is half as bright or one sound half as 
loud as another. 

This circumstance prevents us from finding, by the 
most direct method, the exact law governing the de- 
pendence of the sensation upon the intensity of the 
stimulus. 

We can, indeed, easily arrange a series of irritations 
which admit of an accurate measurement of their var- 
ious intensities but we can not, by means of the obser- 
vation of the intensity of our own sensation corres- 
ponding to them, refer to each its value in numbers. 
We can not, therefore, derive from the comparison of 
these two sets of values the general law which suffices 
for all. We are, therefore, driven to the following cir- 
cumlocution, depending on the fortunate circumstance 
that we are at least able to judge with a high degree of 
accuracy and certainty of the likeness of two sensa- 
tions. According to the fundamental experiments of 
Ernst Heinrich Weber (article " Sense of touch and 
sensation " in R. Wagner's Dictionary of Physiology, 
vol. Ill, part 2. ) which have since been confirmed and 
extended by many others, two similar excitements, when 
they begin to vary, do not produce two evidently dis- 
tinguishable (instead of identical) sensations until their 
intensities stand in a definite geometric ratio. This 
ratio remains the same for one and the same sense, 
within the limits, of course, of irritations so small as 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 13 

not to awaken the nerve and so violent as to disturb the 
function. On the other hand it is different for differ- 
ent senses, approaching about 3 : 4 for the hearing 
and simple feeling of pressure upon the skin; 15 : 16 
for the latter when supplemented by muscular sensa- 
tion in lifting; 100 : 101 for sensations of light. 

§7. The dependence of our capacity for distinguish- 
ing impressions upon the ratio of the intensity of the 
irritation, which has been derived from observation, is 
embodied in Weber's Law. 

It does not explain, however, in what way the ratio 
of the intensity of the irritation really prepares us to 
distinguish impressions. 

It does not explain, namely, whether the variations 
in the intensity of the irritations produce a noticable 
difference in the intensity of sensations, these otherwise 
remaining the same, or whether they produce sensations 
qualitatively different, and which are in this way dis- 
tinguished. 

In itself, every sensation is a single indivisible act. To 
separate in thought as distinct elements the qualitative 
content and the intensity with which it is perceived is 
indubitably permissible in so far as the immediate im- 
pression, with regard to which we can alone decide, 
agrees with it. This is, for example, the case with 
sounds. Here we may really convince ourselves that a 
sound of definite pitch and timbre may become louder 



14 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

or fainter without altering its character on this account. 

On the other hand, it is quite questionable if the sen- 
sation of a heavy pressure is the same as that of a 
lighter one, or if the taste of a concentrated acid is 
really the same taste as that of a more dilute acid of the 
same kind. Still more reluctant are we to consider the 
sensation of cold as simply that of a feebler heat. 
Both are, rather, opposite poles, although the agencies 
producing them are similar processes. 

Finally, various intensities of light have really vari- 
ous colors; a less brilliant white is not simply pale 
white, but it has become gray, and this gray, as well as 
black, cannot be considered as simplv a feebler sensation 
of white. These points have been overlooked hitherto 
and not disposed of. 

The following discussion depends upon the assump- 
tion, which, although unproven, may be correct, that 
sensations are distinguished because their intensities 
vary according to a definite scale. 

§8. It must be first remembered that for each sense a 
certain small irritation is necessary before a sensation 
can result. Naturally, in order to explain this circum- 
stance, which is not at all self-evident, a resistance of 
some sort must be assumed by reason of which a very 
small irritation is prevented from affecting the mind. 
Where this resistance is offered is not known. 

It is farther assumed that the passage from complete 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 15 

identity or imperceptible difference in two impressions 
to a difference just distinguishable is always one and the 
same constant increment of the sensation (i. e., of the 
second impression as compared to the firsts and that 
the minuteness of the distinction, may, therefore, be 
employed as a scale for measuring the intensity of the 
sensation. 

It may be inquired, how must the irritation increase 
so that the passage from one value of it to another 
may always produce a constant increment in the inten- 
sity of sensation. According to the experiments refer- 
red to the answ r er is this: In order that the intensity of 
the sensation may increase by a constant difference, i. e., 
in arithmetical ratio, the intensity of the irritation 
must be increased much more rapidly, i. e., in geometri- 
cal ratio; or, the relation of the first to the second is 
comparable to that of a logarithm to the number of 
which it is the logarithm; more simply expressed, sen- 
sation belongs to that class of activities which rise in 
intensity with greater difficulty the more intense the ac- 
tivity they are already exerting. 

The following questions remain to answer: — 

1. Why this peculiar relation occurs at all, and why 
the sensation and the irritation are not, the rather, di- 
rectly proportional, which would seem more natural? 
None of the theories offered is satisfactory, but the most 
plausible assumption is that, in the transformation of 



16 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the external irritation, something or other takes place 
which proceeds slower as the irritation increases. 

2. But why is it that all impressions are not distin- 
guished — that, for example, a weight 3 must increase to 
4 in order to produce an additional sensation of pressure 
and none is produced by 3^, 3^, or 3§? Certain arrange- 
ments can be easily thought of by which this discontin- 
uity in the series of sensations could be produced but 
it is not in the least known where or how in the body 
or soul such arrangements are situated. 

Both these riddles are quite unsolved., 

(Comp. G. Th. Fechner, Elements of Psycho-physics, 
Leipzig, 1860. 

G. E. Mueller, Foundation of Psycho-physics, Berlin, 
1878.) 

§9. It may, perhaps, be claimed that a state of rest or 
an entirely unvaried excitement is never the immediate 
occasion of sensation, but that the passage from one 
condition to another is always necessary. From this it 
would follow that sensations which may continue to us 
for a long time, for example, the seeing of a light or the 
hearing of a sound, must be based on series of single im- 
pulses with intervening pauses so that here also a fre- 
quent repetition of alterations between excitement and 
a state of rest would occur. 

In the case of sensations of light and sound this can 
be proven. Here even every single flash of light and 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 17 

every shortest sound consists of a considerable number 
of discrete impulses which are transferred to the organs 
of sense. In the case of the other senses this evidence 
is wanting. 

If it be said that all processes of stimulation which 
are to produce sensations must have the form of oscill- 
ations between two opposite conditions, it, at least, must 
not be understood that the sensation consists in the 
enumeration of these impulses. They can only be regard- 
ed simply as the actual conditions upon which the origin 
of sensation in an unknown way depends. In the con- 
tent of sensation itself — in redness or warmth — we dis- 
cover no motion whatever and still less the number of 
the oscillations by reason of which it becomes the cause 
of sensation. 

§10. If an excitement a, which is ordinarily produced 
by the operation of an external irritant and which is fol- 
lowed by the sensation A , be exceptionally produced by 
an irritant arising within the body then the same sensa- 
tion A will follow; this is called subjective sensation. 

Common examples are the ringing in the ear, flashes 
of light in the eye, and fever chills and heat. 

In connection with this stands the theory of the 
specific energy of the nerve according to which each in- 
dividual sensory nerve always produces the same sensa- 
tion however it may be irritated. If it were so, it would 
not be strange, for every connected system of parts 



18 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

which is disturbed but not destroyed reacts in attempts 
to regain its equilibrium, the form of which re-action, 
depending upon its own structure and its inherent ac- 
tive forces, is not altered by the diversity of the disturb- 
ing irritants. But, in that case, since this attempt in 
one nerve is distinguishable from that in every other, 
each nerve must have its own peculiar structure, a con- 
dition which we have not, as yet, discovered. 

There are no facts, however, which require to be thus 
explained. We simply know that light stimuli, blows, 
pressure and the passage of electrical currents through 
the eye waken sensations of light, and, perhaps, that 
blows and electricity produce sensations of sound, and 
the latter of taste. 

Now a motion of the ponderable portion of the elastic- 
globe of the eye can hardly take place as the result of a 
blow without its being followed by a translation of a 
part of it into motions of the ether within it, thus 
producing light waves which would constitute as suffic- 
ient an irritant to affect the optic nerve as if they 
came from without. 

In like manner, a blow may impart to tense mem- 
branes and orgcins vibrations which then constitute 
normal stimuli to the auditory nerve equally with sound 
waves from without. 

Finally, the electric current produces certain chemical 
decompositions of the fluids of the mouth in which are to 
be found sufficient irritants to affect the gustatory nerve. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 19 

Hence it may be maintained that in order that the 
nerve should reach the condition a which is followed 
by the sensation A a definite adequate irritation is nec- 
essary, but very many inadequate irritants exist which 
subdivide in tneir operation into various components^ 
one of which may be an irritant adequate to produce 
the sensation A, others being perceived at the same 
time in other sensations, as, for example, the simultan- 
eous feeling of pain in case of a blow. 

§11. The operation of the external irritation is not 
as simple as formerly supposed; waves of light not act- 
ing, for example, directly upon the optic nerves to 
awaken according to their constitution all possible color 
and light sensations. There are found in the eye pecu- 
liarly constructed layers, as yet not well understood 
(rod and spindle layers) which appear to be designed to 
translate the light waves entering them into chemical 
changes in a peculiar substance (optic-purple) which 
then act as irritants upon the optic nerve. In the skin 
and tongue we likewise find peculiar tactile and gusta- 
tory organs, which, in some unknown way ; are sup- 
posed to give to the irritation the definite character nec- 
essary to affect the nerves contained in them. 

In the ear we find something analogous, although 
here the simpler arrangement seems to prevail, each 
single nerve-fibre being receptive only to a single tone. 
The entire expanse of the fibres (in the organ of Corti) 



20 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

is thus like a piano and each thread receptive to only 
one rate of vibration. 

A similar hypothesis is in vogue as to the eye. Accord- 
ing to this theory there are three sorts of threads, of 
which each is irritated independently, and each is sensi- 
tive to one of the three fundamental colors — green, red, 
and violet. The other colors result from the simultaneous 
irritation of threads of the other sorts. 

This hypothesis is not invented gratuitously, but to ac- 
count for the phenomena of color-blindness which are 
explained by it. 

It is necessary to explain, however, why a definite 
combination of simultaneous excitements can produce 
from red, green and violet, the other colors, as yellow, 
blue, and red, which, so far as the impressions of sensa- 
tion are concerned, seem not at all likely to be derived 
from them. 

§12. In one sense, all sensations are but subjective, 
i. e.. only appearances in our consciousness which have 
nothing corresponding to them in the external world. 
Even in antiquity this truth was outlined, and modern 
physics fills out the picture. The external world is 
neither silent nor loud, neither bright uor dark, but is 
as utterly incomparable to these as is sweetness to a 
line. Nothing is happening outside of our bodies but 
motions of various sorts. 

Physiology often makes the untenable statement that 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 21 

sensations are simply apprehensions of our own condi- 
tion. All that goes on in the nerves while we are see- 
ing is not in the least perceived by ns, and there is known 
no process in our souls preceding the sensation so in- 
timately that it may be called an act of perception of 
the sensation. It may be said, therefore, that sensa- 
tions are appearances within us which are, indeed, the 
results of external irritations, but are not strictly rep- 
resentations of them. 

The proofs upon which this theory rests, all, admit of 
evasion. It may be still assumed that things are realty 
red or sweet, but we cannot know them to be so except 
as they cause motions to operate upon us which cer- 
tainly are neither red nor sweet, but cause to arise in 
our minds the same redness and sweetness, as sensations, 
that really are peculiarities of things. The real proof 
is that such objective peculiarities are unthinkable- 
Wherein consists the brightness of a light which no 
one ever saw, or the sound of a tone no one has heard 
is quite as impossible to say, as what a toothache would 
be which no one ever had. 

It is, therefore, part of the very nature of colors,, 
sounds, odors, etc., to be limited to a single position and 
a single occasion. They can, namely, only exist in the 
consciousness of a soul, and then only when the sensa- 
tion is felt. 



CHAPTER SECOND. 
THE PROCESS OF CONCEPTION. 

§1. Concepts, in contrast to sensations, are those pic- 
tures of memory which are left in consciousness by 
earlier sensations. 

This agrees with our ordinary use of language; we 
conceive of the absent, which we do not perceive, but 
perceive the present which do not require to conceive 
of. Conception is peculiarly distinguished from sensa- 
tion. The concept of the brightest light does not 
gleam, of the loudest tone does not resound, of the 
acutest pain does not ache. In each case, however, the 
concept accurately represents the gleam, the sound and 
the pain which it does not really reproduce. 

§2. These pictures of memory are not always pre- 
sent in consciousness in this form. They appear only 
now and then, but, when they do, in such a way that 
no external irritation is necessary for their reproduc- 
tion. It follows that they were not. entirely lost in the 
meantime, but must have transformed themselves into 
some conditions, which we cannot, of course, describe, 
but for which we may employ, the contradictory but 
convenient name, kl unconscious concepts, 1 ' to indicate 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 23 

that they are formed from concepts and, under proper 
circumstances, may again become concepts. The study 
of the process of conception must explain both these 
states. . 

§3. The disappearance of concepts from the con- 
sciousness no one can observe; we can speak only upon 
the basis of decisions drawn from what we find in con- 
sciousness afterwards, and upon general principles. 

Two views stood opposed to each other. It was for- 
merly thought that the disappearance of concepts is 
quite natural, and that the opposite— '-^memory — requires 
explanation. Now, however, following the analogy of 
the physical law of inertia, it is thought necessary to 
explain forgetting, because the continuance of an ex- 
cited condition is self-evident. 

This analogy is rather lame. It applies to the 
motions of bodies, but motion is only an alteration in 
external relations by which the moved body does not 
suffer, because it is situated exactly as favorably in one 
place as the other, and has neither cause nor standard 
for putting forth a resistance to the motion. The soul, 
on the contrary, is placed in various internal conditions 
according as a, or b, or nothing is conceived. It is 
conceivable that it reacts against each of the impres- 
sions offered, and thus, without annihilating any of 
them may. perhaps, change them from conscious sen- 
sations into unconscious states. 



24 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Even the principle of the unity of the soul, admissible 
as it is in itself — even this unity, which makes necessary 
the reflex action between the many conceptions, so that 
one must replace the other — does not lead us to the goal. 
For, if it be asked in what way the soul, in its unity, 
utilizes the plurality of concepts, the most reasonable 
assumption would be that all qualitatively diverse sen- 
sations or concepts are fused in a single homogeneous 
intermediate condition. 

Yet this is not the case, but the concepts, for exam- 
ple, of blue and yellow, or large and small, when once 
originated in the consciousness as distinct, never mingle. 
It is also clear that all the higher spiritual products, 
which consist chiefly of relations between different 
points which are to be compared, would be impossible 
if, in this fusing into a common condition, the diversity 
of the different points were lost. 

The following thoughts are suggested simply as hy- 
potheses which are not deducible from principles. 

§4. According to the analogy of physical mechanics, 
concepts might be considered as forces which oper- 
ate upon each other according to the degree of their 
resistance and intensity. Both parts of this hypoth- 
esis are difficult to support by experience. In regard, 
firstly, to the intensity, this notion is employable 
in the case of sensations, in as far as the greater per- 
ceived content is an effect of the greater activity of sen- 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 25 

sation, or a more severe agitation or affection of the 
perceiving subject. But the simple concept of a bright 
light is no greater than that of a feeble shimmer, and 
that of thunder requires no greater effort than that of a 
slight noise. 

The conceiving activity seems then to permit of no 
distinction in intensity, but this must be found alone in 
tl^e conceived content. 

Moreover, the more or less obscure concepts, which 
we think we have of one and the same content, by no 
means produce a diverse intensity of the conception. 

Simple concepts which seem obscure to us, as, for 
example, that of the taste of a rare fruit, we do not 
have at all, but simply know, from other sources, that 
the fruit has a taste. The greater the field within 
which a choice is possible between various tastes with- 
out reaching a decision, so much the more obscure ap- 
pears the concept of the real taste which we are seeking 
but do not possess. 

Complex concepts, such as pictures of external objects 
or scientific formulae, are not obscure because the entire 
content becomes gradually fainter, but because it be- 
comes discontinuous. Single portions drop out entirely, 
but, particularly, the definite relations in which the re- 
maining constituents stand to each other are forgotten. 
The greater the number of the possible connections 
between which one hesitates, the greater the, so-called, 
obscurity of the concept. On the other hand, as soon 



26 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

as a concept is thought complete in all its parts and 
connections, it is not possible to conceive it more or 
less vividly. The increase in clearness which seems to 
result from the association by research with the con- 
cept, say of a triangle, of the many other thoughts un- 
known to the beginner, is but apparent. 

§5. The second of the notions employed, that of in- 
sistence, awakens the question whether it refers to the 
content of the concept, or to the activity by which it is 
conceived. These are not identical. Concepts are 
never that which they represent, that of red is not red, 
that of a triangle is no triangle, that of passion is not a 
passionate concept. 

If two conceived contents oppose one another, as right 
and left, plus and minus, black and white, it does not, 
in the least, follow that the conceiving activities which 
produced them are also opposed, and so, according to 
the analogy of opposed physical motion, would tend to 
neutralize each other. 

§6. The notions of intensity and reaction would only 
be applicable to the founding of a system of psychical 
mechanics if they could be referred to the conceiving 
activity. 

This is not the case. It could merely be accepted as 
a fact, if the intensity and reaction of conceived con- 
tents were the causes of the alterations of conception. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



Experience does not confirm this; conceptions of larger 
contents by no means displace those of smaller. On the 
contrary, the latter are sometimes in a position to sup- 
press even the sensations of external irritation. 

Now concepts never enter the sonl without doing 
something else; connected with every impression is that 
which is conceived to be its result, and also a sense of 
the value which it has for the physical and spiritual 
well-being of the one perceiving. 

These feelings of pleasure and displeasure are just as 
capable of gradual diminution as the simple conception 
is incapable of it. This feeling of participation is sus- 
ceptible to great variations dependant upon variations 
in the state of mind, and according to the amount of 
this feeling of participation, or, briefly stated, according 
to the amount of interest which a concept, for various 
reasons, excites in the soul at each instant, it operates 
with greater or less force to suppress other concepts. 
It is in this, rather than any inherent peculiarity 
which the concept has, that what we call the power 
of the concept consists. 

§7. The second question was, how do concepts return 
into consciousness? With regard to this, it is simply 
known that a concept, b, very frequently returns if an- 
other, a, be produced in consciousness. 

As, however, not any b appears as a result of the 
presence of any a we please, there must be a more in- 



28 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

timate connection between those which reproduce each 
other than exists between those which do not so repro- 
duce each other. This connection is called association 
— a simple name which does not in the least express in 
what the connection consists. Likewise is reproduc- 
tion a simple name for the fact that a given a recalls 
into consciousness b, which is associated with it. 

Nevertheless, the conditions under which both assoc- 
iation and reproduction actually take place may be 
studied. 

The two primary classes which are usually first men- 
tioned, i. e., reproduction, on the one hand, of likes by 
like, and, on the other, of opposites by opposed concepts, 
are not readily supported by experience. For it cannot be 
said that a sound or color recalls more vividly all other 
sounds and colors than some other concepts. If, on the 
other hand, opposites remind of each other, as darkness 
of light, night of day, plus of minus; the reason is not 
their opposition alone, but the special importance which 
these have for our life or its activities, so that we are 
thus reminded of the one by the other. 

Bat the third and fourth cases, the reproduction of 
parts of bodies occupying space by other parts and, on 
the other hand, the mutual reproduction of the parts of 
a successive whole, as, for example, a melody in its 
original order, do certainly occur. 

Examples are unnecessary. Neither does it seem nec- 
essary to refer the third case, as is often done, back to 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 29 

the fourth, because, it is said, the perception of a sim- 
ultaneous whole takes place in a successive manner, the 
eye requiring to run over the whole and thus gradually 
perceiving the connection of each several part with the 
next. We do, indeed, form accurate images only in this 
way, but it is not to be denied that an instantaneous 
"glance may form images of Avhich the single parts are 
capable of reproducing each other. 

The facts may, therefore, be thus summarized: — 

Every pair of concepts, whatever their content, assoc- 
iate themselves whenever they are produced simultan- 
eously or one immediately following the other (i. e., 
without intermediate ones). To this case may be re- 
ferred without further argument, the special ease with 
which a number of concepts may be repeated in their 
order but not out of it. 

If, finally, immediate reproduction be given as a spec- 
ial case, comprising instances where the concept or sen- 
sation a is again awakened by the influence of a new 
irritation which produces the same a, it must be re- 
membered that the second a could not be recognized as 
a repetition of the first if they were really both ident- 
ical. 

The first one, however, which is thus awaked by the 
second, now reproduces, on its part, those associated cir- 
cumstances under which it was previously experienced, 
and these are different from those of the present 
moment. The recognition of the original a is, there- 



30 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

fore, dependent upon mediated reproduction, i. e., of 
other concepts through the agency of a. 

§8, Most concepts, in the course of a lifetime, assoc- 
iate themselves in the same way with many others. If, 
therefore, a definite f is again distinguished in con- 
sciousness, it is quite uncertain which of the many 
others, g, h, i, or k, with which it was formerly assoc- 
iated, may now be reproduced. 

The basis for the decision in favor of any one lies 
partly in the course which the concepts prior to f have 
taken, with which g, h, i, and k may not equally agree; 
partly in our mood or the humor produced each 
moment by the activity or restraints of our being; 
partly, finally, in the peculiar conditions of the physical 
life, which we will here omit entirely, but of which we 
will speak further on. 

These views can only be carried out in a general way, 
it being impossible to base theories upon them Avhich 
can be carried into details, and equally impossible in an 
individual case to discover the causes which have really 
produced the seemingly capricious flow of our thought. 



CHAPTER THIRD. 
RELATIVE KNOWLEDGE AND ATTENTION. 

§1. Up to this time we have spoken of the relations 
and alterations in conceptions. In onr inner life, how- 
ever, there is, besides these elements, a conception of 
these relations and vicissitudes. These two things are 
quite different.. 

We know that when the concept of blue and red ap- 
pear at once within us, they, by no means combine to 
produce violet. If this were the case, the result would 
be a simple concept taking the place of the others, and 
a comparison of the two would be made impossible by 
their disappearance. 

Every comparison — in general, every relation between 
two elements (in this case red and blue)— is evidence 
that both the factors are distinct, and that a conceiving- 
activity passes from the one, a. to the other, b and that 
this alteration which is experienced in passing from the 
concept of a to that of b is itself in consciousness. 
Such an activity we exert when Ave compare red with 
blue, and the result is a new concept of qualitative sim- 
ilarity which we accord to both. 

If a strong and a weak light are perceived at once. 
the result is not the sensation of a single light equaling 



32 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the sum of them both, but they remain distinct, and in 
passing again from one to the other we become con- 
scious of another quantitive alteration of our condition, 
*". e., the simple perception of more or less of the same 
impression. 

Finally, if two identical impressions have appeared 
within us they do not unite to form a third, but, as we 
compare them, as above, and do not become conscious 
during the transition of an alteration in the concept, 
the new conception of equality arises. 

§2. It is important to explain that all these new con- 
cepts, which we consider as of a higher order, do not 
appear as resultants of a mere reciprocation of the orig- 
inal simple concepts in the same way that in mechanics 
a third movement results from the union of two others. 
This analogy does not hold good at all in the spiritual 
realm. The two impressions, a and h, are rather to be 
considered as stimuli which operate upon the peculiar 
and unit nature of a conceiving subject, and, in this, 
give rise to the reactionary activity through which new 
concepts, for example, that of similarity, identity, con- 
trariety, etc., result, which would not be produced by a 
simple combined activity of the separate impressions 
without the stimulation of this new spiritual activity. 

§3. In the same way as these new concept are 
formed, all of what we call general notions are produced. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 33" 

It is customary to assume that dissimilar constituents 
of compared concepts neutralize each other by their 
contradiction, but the remaining similar components 
constitute directly the abstract part. However, the 
single examples, out of which we construct a general 
notion, are not destroyed in the process, but their con- 
cepts remain along with the general notion which, as a 
new product, simply refers to these. Moreover, the 
general notion never forms a permanent picture which 
may be conceived of in the same conspicuous way as 
the single examples from which it is composed. " Color 
in general " can not be imaged to the mind — it does not 
look green or red — it does not ,k look " at all, and just 
so the concept " animal " produces no distinct image 
like the concept of a single species. All such general 
notions are not, therefore, products of the combined 
operation of many .single concepts, for they would then 
have the same character as their components. The 
names with which we designate them (such as the word 
color) are simply conveniences for the conception of a 
group of single impressions, but with the accessory 
idea that they refer not to them, but to the common 
features contained in them, which cannot, however, be 
separated from them as a similar concept. 

§4-. Upon this fact depends the various narrower and 
broader meanings of the word consciousness. It often 
happens that we perceive the plurality of elements, but do 



34 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

not know how to distinguish at the moment their definite 
relations. On the other hand, it is possible to become 
conscious of them later, even after the sensuous impres- 
sion is past. It follows that these impressions were by 
no means outside of consciousness, otherwise we could 
not remember them afterwards. But the faculty of 
comparison, which enumerates and conceives of the re- 
lations actually existing between them was not exerted. 
It is seen from this that the two operations are sep- 
arable. 

The process of comparison, as the higher, can not be 
employed without the simple perception of the sensa- 
tion, but the lower is not necessarily accompanied by 
the higher. 

Common experience shows that there are many cir- 
cumstances which prevent the appearance of this higher 
activity. In many emotions we hear the sounds but 
do not understand the words; or, understand the words 
but not the significance which they have for us. Even 
bodily and some little understood conditions cause that 
the simple sensation of impressions persist while neither 
their external nor internal connection reaches our con- 
sciousness ( mind-blindness ) . 

§5. What we have above mentioned is nothing, in 
reality, but a series of various degrees of attention. This 
was formerly considered as an activity of the soul 
which, like a departing and approaching light, illumin- 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 35 

ates, more or less brilliantly, the impression, while it is 
of itself unperceived. Later this idea of an activity was 
entirety rejected (Herbart), and the statement was 
made that the fact that we are attentive to something 
signifies simply that the concept of this something 
rises in our consciousness by its own intensity. 

We cannot accept the latter assumption, nor can we 
admit the statement that attention is simply a more in- 
tense illumination of the content. We attain anything 
through the agency of attention only when the con- 
ceived content affords opportunity for the operation of 
our faculty of reference and comparison. 

Even a simple content is compared by us at least with 
other simple contents, or with itself in different 
moments of its duration. We learn from this that the 
mere observation of the content, intense as it may be, 
amounts to nothing. It is plain, finally, that this com- 
parison of one content with another may be carried to 
any desirable extent. Various stages may thus, indeed, 
be distinguished in the consciousness according as 
simply the thing itself and its own nature is conceived; 
or its connection with others ; or, finally, its significance 
and importance to our personal life. 



CHAPTER FOURTH, 
THE INTUITIONS OF SPACE. 

§1. Metaphysics raises the doubt whether the exist. 
ence of extended space, in which we are contained along 
with other things, is real; whether, the rather, the ex- 
tended world is not an intuition within us. 

Neglecting this question for the present, we proceed 
upon the common assumption. But since things can- 
not become objects of our perception by virtue of their 
existence simply but always on account of activities 
which they exert upon us, we are led to the question : — 
"How do objects cause us to conceive of them in that 
condition of extension in which they are actually situ- 
ated without us?" 

§2. In the eye nature has carefully arranged an ap- 
paratus which causes the light rays from an illumin- 
ated point to be again collected in a point upon the 
retma and the various points in the picture here 
formed to occupy the same relative positions as the 
points in the object to which they correspond. This 
so-called image of the object thus carefully produced 
is, without doubt, an indispensible requisite to the per- 
ception of an object in its true form and position. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 37 

But it is a fundamental error to suppose that the 
simple existence of this picture is alone sufficient to ex- 
plain our concept of the position of its parts. 

This whole picture is essentially nothing but a repre- 
sentation of the external object within the organ of 
sense, and how we experience or know anything about 
it is just as much of a question as was the question 
how we perceive the external object. 

§3. If the soul itself were considered a being having 
extension, the impressions upon the retina might be 
transferred to the soul with their perfect geometrical 
regularity. Then one point of the soul would be ex- 
cited by green, another by red, and a third by yellow, 
and the three would lie as accurately upon the angles 
of a triangle as the corresponding excitations on the 
retina. 

But it is readily seen that nothing is really gained. 
The simple fact that three different points in the soul 
are excited is simply a triplicity of disconnected facts. 
No knowledge of this, i. <?., of the triplicity or the rela- 
tive position of the three points is thus produced. For 
this purpose there must be a unifying activity, to which, 
therefore, as to every activity, all predicates of exten- 
sion or magnitude in space are entirely foreign. 

§4-, The same idea becomes more apparent if we lay aside 
the useless notion of a soul possessing extension and 



38 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

consider it as a super-sensuous being, which, in order to 
be brought into relation with definitions of space must be 
regarded as an indivisible point. In the passage into 
this indivisable point the manifold impressions must 
certainly lose all geometrical relations which may have 
been retained upon the retina as do the rays of light 
which converge to the focus of a lense. Beyond the 
focus the rays diverge in the same order as they came. 
Nothing analogous to this, however, takes place in our 
consciousness. The various impressions which existed 
contemporaneously do not again become distinct, but, 
instead, excite the activity of conception, which dis- 
tributes their images upon the space which is only 
an intuition of its own. Here applies again the remark 
that the concept is not that which it conceives, and the 
concept of a left hand point does not lie at the left of a 
concept of a point at the right, but the conception 
which itself has no properties of extension, so conceives 
the points as though one lay to the left, the other to the 
right. 

§5. The following result is before us: — 
Many impressions are in the soul at once, but not 
spatially distinct, but rather like the simultaneous tones 
of a chord, i. e., qualitatively diverse but not alongside 
or under one another. Nevertheless, out of these 
impressions must be produced the concept of relations 
in space. The question immediately arises, how does it 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 39 

happen that the soul does not apprehend them as they 
really are, i. e., unextended, rather than in spatial rela- 
tions, which they are not. The sufficient ground cannot 
lie in the impressions themselves, but mast be simply in 
the nature of the soul in which they appear, and upon 
which they merely operate as stimuli. 

On this account it is customary to consider this tend- 
ency of the soul to conceive of space as a primitive, in- 
born capacity. In truth one must be contented with 
this result. All the attempts to explain why this 
intuition of space is a necessary attribute of the soul 
have completely failed hitherto. 

There is no occasion for complaint, however, for the 
simplest elements of the soul's experience must simply 
be accepted as proved facts. No one, for example, seri- 
ously asks why air waves are heard rather than tasted. 

§6. Much more important is the second question: 
Supposing the soul to possess the function of conceiving 
certain diverse impressions as distributed in space, how 
is it that each individual impression is so referred to a 
definite point in the space thus conceived that the result 
is a faithful representation of the object which affects 
the eye ? 

Obviously, the impressions themselves must furnish 
the clue. The simple qualities of the sensation red or 
green do not contain it, however, for each such color 
may, from time to time, appear in every part of space, 



40 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

and can not, therefore, be referred always to a definite 
point. 

But now we remember that the care with which the 
accurate position of the various irritants upon the retina 
is insured cannot be in vain. Certainly it is true that an 
impression is not perceived at a definite point because it 
is at that point, but it is certain that it might affect the 
soul far differently in this position than if it were pro- 
duced in any other point. 

Now we will imagine the following arrangement: 
Each color-impression R, for example red, produces the 
same sensation of redness whenever it affects the retina. 
Bat along with this in each point, a, h, C, etc., a certain 
accessory impression, A, H, C, etc., is produced which 
is independent of the nature of the color seen, and 
simply depends upon the peculiarities of the irritated 
spot. In this manner a local impression is associated 
with each color-impression, so that RA will indicate a 
red reaction at the point a, RB a red reaction at the 
point b. These associated impressions become indices 
which enable the soul to refer the same sensation red 
now to one and now to another place, or even simult- 
aneously to various points in the space perceived by it. 

In order that this may occur in an orderly manner 
these accessory impressions must be quite distinct from 
the principal ones, and not interfere with them. But 
they must not onty be like in kind, but definite mem- 
bers of a series, or a system of series, so that each im- 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 41 

pression R may be able, by its local index, to distinguish, 
not simply a particular, but an absolutely definite place 
from all others. 

§7. This is the theory of local indices. The funda- 
mental idea is that all diversities in extension, and 
relations between impressions upon the retina must be 
translated into corresponding unextended but simply 
intensive relations between the impressions concurring 
without extension in the soul. These are not reflected 
in actually discrete impressions, but there results simply 
a concept of such a redistribution. 

Up to this point we hold this principle to be neces- 
sarily valid. On the other hand, only hypotheses are 
available to answer the question, in what these impres- 
sions consist which are assumed as accessory to the 
sense of sight. We suggest as follows: If a bright 
light fall upon the sides of the retina, where, as is well- 
known, the sensitiveness to impressions is duller than 
in the middle, there results a rotation of the eye so that 
the more sensitive part of the retina becomes the re- 
ceptive organ. This we call casting a glance upon that 
light. This motion takes place involuntarily, origin- 
ally without our realizing its purpose, and always 
without our consciousness of the means by which it is 
effected. 

We may, therefore, include it among the so-called 
reflex motions which result from the excitement of a 



42 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

nerve, otherwise sensory in function, to transmit a 
stimulus resulting in a definite motion; this taking- 
place by means of existing anatomical connections, in 
a way entirely mechanical, without farther agency 
of the mind. 

Now in order to produce such a rotation of the eye, 
suited to the purpose mentioned, each individnal part 
of the retina must, when irritated, produce a degree and 
direction of this rotation peculiar to it alone. At the 
same time, however, all these rotations would be quite 
analogous motions and members of a series graduated 
according to their magnitude and direction. 

§8, The application of this theory (many minor 
points aside) is as follows: — 

If a bright light fall upon a point P of a retina 
which has, as yet, had no sensation of light, there re- 
sults, by virtue of the connection of nervous processes, 
such a rotation of the eye that, instead of P, the point 
E, where the impressions are most vivid, is submitted 
to the irritation of the light. During the rotation 
of the eye through the arc P E, the soul is conscious 
of its position at each instant, a feeling similar to 
that by which we are informed of the position of 
our members in the dark. The arc P E, therefore, cor- 
responds to a series of constantly changing sensations 
of position, the first member of which we may also call 
P and the last E, Now, when in a second instance the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 43 

point P is affected by light, the result is not only a rep- 
ititon of the rotation P E, but the very first member, P, 
of the series of sensations of positions reproduces the 
whole associated series P E, and this series of concepts 
is independent of the actual rotation through the arc 
PE. 

The same thing would take place in another point 
Q, except that the arc Q E, the series of sensations of 
position Q E, and the introductory member Q would 
have different values. 

Finally, if it should happen that both thefpoints P and 
Q were irritated to the same degree, and the arcs P and 
E and Q E were similar, but opposed to each other 
the actual rotation P E and Q E could not take place, 
nevertheless, the irritation of the points P and Q would 
not be inoperative. Each would reproduce the series 
of sensations of position belonging to it, P E or 
Q E. Therefore, although the eye does not move, 
the excitement of the points P and Q associates 
with them the concepts of the magnitude and peculiar- 
ities of the series of changes which would be experi- 
enced by the consciousness in the act of transferring 
the irritations to the point of the eye where they would 
be most clearly seen, or, in ordinary parlance, in the act 
of casting a glance. We now may state that in the act 
of seeing a thing to the right or left of a given line of 
view we simply become conscious of the amount of 
effort necessary to cause them to coincide with that line. 



44 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

§9. In this discussion we have simply explained the 
relative position of the individual colored points in the 
field of view. This whole image would, however, have 
no position in any greater space, indeed, no concept of 
such space would be present. We obtain the image of a 
place at first through the agency of the eye, the opening 
and closing of which ( of which processes we are otherwise 
conscious) determine its existence and non-existence. 

The visible world is before the eyes, and whatever is 
behind not only does not exist for us. but we do not yet 
know that there is such thing as u behind us." 1 Motions 
of the body extend our knowledge. If the field view 
in a certain position contains the images a, b, and c, 
passing from left to right, and we then revolve upon 
the axis of the body toward the right, a disappears, but 
on the right d is added. We perceive in succession the 

images of b c d, c d e, d e f x y z, y z a, zal), a b c. 

As a result of a recurrence of the original images 
we have two thoughts; first, that the visible objective 
world is in the form of a continuous extension all about 
us, and, secondly, that the alterations in our condition, 
of which we are apprized during the revolution by the 
varying sensations of position, depend upon changes in 
our relations to this quiescent external world. L e., 
upon motion on our part. It is easy to see that out of 
the concept of a continuous horizon the concept of 
spherical extension may be derived by various revolu- 
tions in other directions. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 45 

§10. This spherical surface would possess only super- 
ficial extension, and no hint of a third dimension would 
be given. The concept that such a thing as a third 
dimension of space exists can not spring up spontane- 
ously, hut must be derived from experience, which 
comes of passing about among the visible objects. 

From the manifold variations in the various images 
we reach the impression, in a w r ay tedious to describe, 
but easy to imagine, that every line in the original im- 
age is the beginning of new surf aces, which do not coin- 
cide with those first seen, but lie at a greater or less dis- 
tance from them in space which extends in all directions. 

We have later to consider the question how we esti- 
mate the distances in this third dimension of space. 

§11. The crossing of the rays of light in the small 
opening of the pupil causes the image of upper points 
in an object to lie below, and those of lower points 
above, upon the retina, so that the image, as a whole, is re- 
versed. But it is only prejudice which makes it seem en- 
igmatical that we do not see things upside down on this 
account. Like every geometrical peculiarity of the im- 
age this relative position is utterly lost in the trans- 
mission into consciousness, and the position in which a 
thing is seen is not at all predicated by the position of 
the image. 

But in order that we may ascribe position at all to 
objects — in order, in other words, that the expressions 



46 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

above, below, upright and inverted, may have a mean- 
ing, it is necessary to have a concept of space which 
is entirely independent of the sensations of vision — a 
concept of space in which the entire contents of the 
field of vision may be arranged, and in which, above 
and below are two qualitatively opposite, and conse- 
quently not confusible directions. 

The muscular sense furnishes such a concept. Below 
is the point towards which gravity tends, above is its 
opposite. Both these directions are clearly disting- 
uished by immediate sensation, so that we are never de- 
ceived as to the position of our body in the dark. 

We call objects upright when the lower part of the 
object is seen by the same motion of the eye by which 
we see parts of our person which our muscular sense 
assures us are below, and the upper parts of the object 
in like manner with the same motions which bring up- 
parts of the body into view. 

This agreement is brought about by the inverted pos- 
ition of the image on the retina. In an eye in which 
the sensitive surfaces were in front of the axis of rota- 
tion, but with the greatest sensitiveness in the centre 
of the retina, the same result would require the image 
to be positive. 

§12. It is not possible to explain satisfactorily why 
we see singly, although having two eyes. It does not 
indeed always happen, but two impressions must fall 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 47 

exactly upon two definite points, in order to combine. 

Naturally, we might explain that the two points 
which correspond must produce identical local indices 
which can not he distinguished, but we can not demon- 
strate how this postulate is satisfied. In like manner 
physiology contents itself with simple names. 

Points on the two retinas which produce simple im- 
pressions are called identical points, and those which 
furnish double impressions are called non-identical. 

§13. We naturally refer irritations of the skin at 
once to those points of the skin where we see them op- 
erate, but in case of a repetition when we cannot see 
them, the memory does not assist in the least, for most 
of the ordinary irritants have affected all possible parts 
of the skin, and might be referred to one point as read- 
ily as another. 

In order to correctly localize them, we must be in- 
formed anew at each moment where they belong, that 
is to say, some accessory impression must be associated 
with each primary impression (of impact, pressure, 
heat, or cold ) and independent of it, but dependent upon 
the point irritated. 

The skin is able to give rise to such local indices, for, 
on account of the continuousness of the skin, no single 
point can be irritated without a displacement, tearing, 
stretching or vibration of the adjacent parts. More- 
over as the skin possesses, at different points, different 



48 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

thickness, various elasticity or moveableness — passing 
now over firm surfaces of bone, now over the fleshy 
muscles, and now over cavities — and, as these relations 
vary with the varying positions of the members, it fol- 
lows that the sum of the accessory influences about one 
irritated point would be different from those grouped 
about another. These influences when received by the 
termini of the nerves, and apprehended by conscious- 
ness, may cause the indescribable sensation by means of 
which we distinguish a touch at one point from one at 
another. It can not be said, however, that eveiy point 
of the skin has a peculiar local index. The experiments 
of E. H. Weber show that on the margins of the lips, 
the end of the tongue, and the ends of the fingers, two 
points of contact (with dividers) can be distinguished 
when only one half a line apart, while there are places 
on the arms, legs, and back which will not distinguish 
them at a distance less than twenty lines. This is ex- 
plained as follows: — Where the structure of the skin 
varies little over large areas, the local indices vary but 
little from point to point. Where both irritants oper- 
ate simultaneously, the accessory effects are mutually 
obscured, so that the points are indistinguishable, while 
the same irritations produced successively, when that 
obscuring of the accessory effects is not produced, may 
be still quite distinguish able. On the other hand, we 
do not know how to explain any farther the extraordin- 
ary sensitiveness of the lips, for example. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 49 

§14. The above explanation simply shows how im- 
pressions upon different points may be distinguished. 
It remains to refer each impression to the definite point 
where it operates. This is easy for those who see, who 
already have a perfect image of the surface of the body, 
and after once seeing an irritation produced at any 
point are able to mentally locate the sensation, even in 
the darkness, by means of the identity of the local in- 
dices. 

One who is born blind, however, must construct this 
image by means of the sense of touch. This, of course, 
is accomplished by means of motions of the tactile 
members, and the formation of an estimate of the dis- 
tance passed through in connecting one point with an- 
other. It must be remembered that these motions are 
not seen, but are appreciated only by the sense of 
muscular exertion, i. e., by means of sensations, which, 
as it seems to us, are simple qualitatively diverse, and 
and do not in the least indicate the motions which are 
their real causes. How this muscular sense of the blind 
acts as an index of position we cannot say, but, in all 
probability, the reason lies in the fact that the sense of 
touch, like the organ of vision, may receive several im- 
pressions at once, and that during a motion all previous 
impressions do not disappear at once, leaving no trace, 
but each adjacent set of impressions have a common 
factor, as represented above by the combinations a, b, C; 
b, C, d, etc. In this way it appears that the idea is 



50 . OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

reached that the circumstance which produces for us 
the alteration in muscular sense consists in a change in 
our relation to a series of objects which occur in a 
definite order, that is in a motion. 

§15. It may be doubted whether the concept of space 
which the sense of touch affords a person born blind, is 
at all similar to that of one who sees. It would, the 
rather, be assumed that there would be far less distinct 
concepts of the time, degree and effort in motions used 
in connecting various points as compared with the 
clear, easy and comprehensive apprehension of those 
who see. (Compare upon this point the evidence of 
blind persons who have sustained operations: — Chesel- 
den in Philos. Transact., 1728, vol. 35; Helmholtz, Phy- 
siologische Optik.) 



CHAPTER FIFTH. 
SENSUOUS PERCEPTION AND ILLUSIONS. 

§1, A simple sense-impression represents only the 
impression and does not reveal the thing to which it be- 
longs as its peculiarity, condition or effect. This fur- 
ther interpretation is the province of the understand- 
ing. It is the understanding that is at fault if, after 
having once found the concept a connected by the 
incompletely apprehended accessory conditions c, with 
the second concept b, we are led to conceive that a, 
when repeated under other conditions, d, must be con- 
nected with the same concept to. 

But the senses themselves are not always so innocent 
as in this case. 

The eye, for example, as it represents the outer 
world with its three dimensions upou a plane, gives 
false relations between the images of individual objects. 
Here, therefore, where the sense falsifies and; the under- 
standing must rectify, we may correctly speak of illu- 
sions of sense. 

Here may be classed the diminution in the size of 
distant objects; the convergence of parallels in the dis- 
tance; the elevation of the surface of the sea above its 
shore — simply appearances which persist as sensuous 



52 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

apprehensions even after the understanding is convinced 
of the real relations. 

§2. We estimate the same portion of space larger 
if it be bright colored, but smaller if dark; the filled 
bottle appears to the eye larger than when empty; a 
rough object seems larger than a smooth one to the 
sense of touch. A.n object appears longer in the direc- 
tion indicated by the course of numerous lines upon it 
than it really is. All these effects are utilized in the 
decorative arts. We estimate distance very indefinitely, 
that of a bright object less, of a dark one more; that of 
an object, the markings of which remain clear, much 
less than when causing a confused impression. Gener- 
ally, we use three elements, the real size, the apparent 
size and the distance to find one by means of the other 
two. If the real size is given (for example, because we 
know the object to be a man or child), and at the same 
time the apparent size, then we estimate the distance 
as so much the greater the smaller the second is as 
compared with the first. If we know the apparent 
size and the distance, we may estimate the real size in 
the same way. If, finally, we know the real size and 
the distance, we can find the apparent size in which, for 
example, the object must be drawn in order to appear 
at the given distance. 

If, however, the objects, for example mountains and 
water surfaces, leave no natural scale, so that only the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 58 

apparent size is given, we can only arrive at the real size 
and distance by dividing it into parts which we esti- 
mate according to their relations to the apparent size of 
a known object contained in them. A very important 
means, finally, is furnished by parallax, i. e., the 
amount of displacement of the image of the object C, 
upon a fixed background, P, Q, R, if viewed from both 
ends, A and 15 of a line, A B. This is greater for a 
nearer and less for a more distant object. We use this 
method daily by fixing an object in one eye and then 
the other, or moving the head from left to right, or 
walking intentionally to and fro. 

Science has made great use of this by carefully per- 
forming the same experiment with the assistance of 
fine iustruments for measurement. 

§3. The comparison of sensuous qualities (colors, 
sounds, tastes, degrees of warmth) affords a certain 
quantitative measure of the impression, be it intensity 
or extension in space or duration of time. It demands, 
moreover, that the testing organ be exactly the same in 
order that the various local indices shall not modify the 
impressions of different organs. A person does not test 
the warmth of two vessels of water simultaneously with 
two fingers, but successively with the same, etc. At 
the same time the other breakers must be avoided — that 
of allowing too great a time to intervene to leave both 
impressions vivid in consciousness, or too short a time, 



54 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

so that the secondary effects of the first interfere with 
the second impression. These secondary effects are of 
two sorts. If they are strong and fresh, they obscure 
the second impression, but very often, and in the cases 
of different senses, it happens that the nerve which has 
been for along time subject to the same excitement, after 
this has ceased, spontaneously assumes another sort of 
excitement, through which it passes again to its state of 
equilibrium. And this counter excitement produces 
sensations, as, for example, an eye long effected by 
green, red^ or yellow sees afterwards the compliment- 
ary colors— red, green, and violet. These contrasting sen- 
sations appear in the case of ordinary and muscular 
sensation as well. 

§ I. We consider a body to be in motion if its image 
moves over the retina, and this appearance not only 
takes place if we experience a passive motion (as in 
riding on shipboard) but, also, when we are conscious 
of our motion and convinced that the objects which we 
are passing are stationary. Naturally, the apparent 
motion of objects is the opposite of our own motion. 

The well-known revolving motion which occurs after 
spinning about for some time and suddenly becoming 
stationary appears to be caused by an unconscious move- 
ment of the eyes in the direction previously pursued by 
the body. This motion, when it reaches the corner of 
the eyes, is instantly reversed but to begin over again, 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 55 

thus the same objects pass by continually without in- 
termission. 

§5. If any object, as, for example, a staff, is brought 
into loose contact with the body, say the hand, in such 
a way that change of position is possible, a new and 
peculiar combination of sensations of pressure on 
the different fingers, for example, is produced. Out 
of each combination we form, from earlier experi- 
ence, a concept of the position which the object (as 
the staff) then occupies. 

If now the staff be brought in contact with an exter- 
nal object, and if it meets the same resistance in all its 
positions and this pressure acts through the staff upon 
the hand, we not only transfer the position of this 
resistance to the common intersecting point of all these 
positions, but we think we feel it immediately and 
clearly at the place where it is offered, just as if the 
staff were endowed with sensation as much as the sur- 
face of the hand on which its other end rests. 

This feeling of double contact, which has innumer- 
able examples, produces a peculiar vividness in our con- 
ceptions of external objects. It serves, first of all, to 
make possible the profitable use of many tools, as, for 
example, the probe, knife, fork, pen, etc. By means of 
it we seem to perceive the resistences or obstacles to 
these instruments in loco, and are able to apply the 
proper corrective instantaneously. 



56 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

It teaches us, furthermore, of many of the peculiar- 
ities of things, for example, of the length of a balanced 
stick, or the breadth of a ladder rung, or the length of 
a thread attached to which a ball revolves aboufc the 
hand. 

Finally, it gives us the pleasant feeling of an exist- 
ence in spirit beyond the limits of our bodies, and this 
is the reason for the numerous delicate and peculiar 
prolongations or appendages of our body which usually 
serve as ornaments. 



[Note.— The further elaboration of this thought belongs to Physiologxj, but 
the force of the remark would be lost if considered to apply simply to 
the hair and nails, upon which we are much more dependent for our sen- 
sations of the o;iter world than we at first realize. The minute ridges 
and points found upon the skin of the hands serve in the same way that 
a probe does to acquaint us with the position of an object, for example, 
a needle, which otherwise we could only use as roughly as we now do 
when the fingers are gloved.— C. L. H.] 



CHAPTER SIXTH. 
THE FEELINGS. [SUSCEPTIBILITIES.] 

§1. We apply the term feelings exclusively to con- 
ditions of pleasure or displeasure as contradistinguished 
from sensations, these being but indifferent perceptions 
of a content. 

We do not thereby assert that these two spiritual ac- 
tivities appear separately, it being more probable that 
primarily no concept is entirely indifferent, but, rather 
that the feelings of pleasure or displeasure inhering in 
them only escape our attention because, in adult life, 
the sense and significance which the impressions have 
for our sphere of existence have become more import- 
ant to us than the consideration of the impression itself. 

We conclude, therefore, that, as notions, sensation 
and feeling, although always connected, are quite dis- 
tinct efforts, and not derivable the one from the other. 

Not any sort of a relation between various simultan- 
eous sensations or conditions produces of itself, an effect 
upon the sensibilities, but it is necessary, in order to 
produce a feeling that this relation should be brought to 
bear upon the soul, producing a reactionary activity of 
a faculty not previously included, i. e., a feeling. 



58 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

§2. A natural though undemonstrable inference, and 
a reasonable hypothesis is that feelings result from, and, 
at the same time, indicate the agreement or disagree- 
ment between the excitements produced within us and 
the conditions of the continuance of our well-being. 
Pleasure would then be the result of the stimulation of 
our natural faculties within the limits of these condi- 
tions, and would increase with the intensity of the ex- 
citement; pain, on the other hand, would be induced by 
the fact that the excitement produced, partly on account 
of its intensity, and partly on account of its form 
(which is generally overlooked), disagrees with these 
conditions. This does not imply that the soul first ob- 
serves the excitement, then its relation to these condi- 
tions, and, finally, decides, according to the opinion 
produced by these acts, to feel pleasure or pain, but, it 
is like sensation, say of a red color, simply the result of 
a series of processes in the nerves (although it does not 
enumerate them). In like manner, the feeling is only 
the last result of that strife or disagreement and only 
enters consciousness at the close of this unperceived 
process. 

§3. Pleasure and displeasure are general terms, 
which, thus comprehensively taken, do not designate a 
concrete thing, but every real pleasure or displeasure 
has its own specific character, and these cannot be 
formed out of various portions of a general pleasure or 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 59 

pain any more than the various colors are produced by 
different combinations of light and shade. Of the con- 
ditions under which the feelings in general, or definite 
forms of feelings arise, we know almost nothing. 

The first group which we can distinguish, the sen- 
suous feelings, i. e., those which depend directly on 
sense irritations, are the more intense in the various 
senses the less these senses are adapted to discern them 
objectively. 

Colors and their contrasts produce simply satisfaction 
or dissatisfaction; dissonances of sounds disturb the 
hearer, personally; pleasure and displeasure of taste and 
smell are much more intense; but only in the skin, which 
itself furnishes but little information, and in the inner 
portions, which do not contribute at all to our know- 
ledge does this displeasure assume the character of actual 
pain. The advantage of this arrangement is evident, but 
the mechanical cause is unknown. 

§4, These less intense feelings of the higher senses 
lead to a second class, the cesthetic feelings, which are 
connected chiefly, but not exclusively, with the simultan- 
eous occurrence of numerous impressions and, in the 
simplest cases, are actually dependent upon the simplic- 
ity or complexity in the relations which subsist between 
them. 

The real reason why this simplicity, for example, in 
concordant sounds, acts favorably upon us is unknown, 



60 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

for these relations, as such, are not, as a rule, perceived. 
The character of this aesthetic feeling of satisfaction 
or dissatisfaction can be distinguished from simple sen- 
suous comfort arid discomfort in that the universal 
spirit within us and not our personal well-being is 
augmented or disturbed bv these impressions. To 
these are added the ethical feelings, of which we must 
speak because approbation or disapprobation is simply 
the expression of an importance or lack of it which we 
perceive only in our feelings, and on this account is 
quite distinct from a merely theoretical judgment con- 
cerning the truth or falsity of a postulate. 

§5. Further description of the susceptibilities is un- 
necessary, but, on the other hand, it is useful to dis- 
tinguish two conditions. 

That is frequently called feeling which should really 
be called affection, consisting, not in a quiet condition 
or mood of the soul, but in a motion which — as in anger 
or fear — produces disturbances in the process of concep- 
tion, and also generally includes involuntary motions, 
partly simply gestures, and partly the beginning of ac- 
tions which arise from the given inducing cause if not 
controlled. 

In like manner we must distinguish sentiments, i. e., 
those apprehensions by the soul that certain contents of 
conception have always a definite value. Bravery or 
patriotism are not themselves simple feelings but causes 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 61 

out of which, according to the nature of circumstances, 
varying sorts of feelings may spring. 

§6. The notion "I" is usually defined as that of the 
simultaneous subject and object of consciousness. This 
definition, right as it is in itself, applies, nevertheless, to 
every being which participates in this general character 
of identity. When we speak of self-consciousness we do 
not mean the general form of activity which "thou" 
and " he " possess equally with " I," but we mean that 
knowledge by which we distinguish " I " from " thou " 
and " he." It would be useless to affirm that " I " is 
the subject and object of my knowledge, but " he " sub- 
ject and object of his, as long as we are not fully clear 
as to the distinction between that which is mine and 
and that which is not mine, or his. 

This distinction cannot be taught by any simply theo- 
retical consideration in which " I " and " thou " would 
be simply indifferent examples of such a subject-object. 

The reason that we are able to call one of them " I " 
and contrast it with the whole of the remainder of the 
world by distinctions of an entirely different sort and 
value from those between a second and third thing is 
that our own conditions are not simply objects of con- 
ception, but at the same time awaken an immediate in- 
terest, pleasure or displeasure, which the same condi- 
tions pertaining to any subject in general, but not 
suffered by us, would by no means produce. 



62 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

In this immediate way we learn at first to distinguish 
between what is mine and not mine. The concept of 
"I" is later, and signifies that subject-object which is 
the central point in the " mine " thus discovered. 

Two elements are to be distinguished. The image 
which we form of our own existence may be more or 
less faulty or erroneous, that depending upon the amount 
of that power of reflection by means of which everyone 
strives to explain, theoretically, his position with rela- 
tion to this central point. The evidentness and vivid- 
ness with which every susceptible being distinguishes 
itself from the whole world does not at all depend upon 
the perfection of this fine insight into its own existence, 
but expresses itself in the lowest animal, in so far as it 
recognizes its own condition by pleasure or pain as its 
own, quite as vividly as the most intelligent spirit. 

A spirit, however, which viewed everything without 
participating, by pleasure or pain, would neither be 
capable nor, if capable, would it be influenced to set 
itself up as "I" against the remainder of the world; 
he would himself be one of, but not at all taking pre- 
cedence of, the many examples of a being at once 
subject and object of thought. 



CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
MOTION. 

§1. Our motions take place independently of a know- 
ledge of the means — muscles and their contractility — 
and certainly without our knowing how to proceed to 
cause the proper excitement in a given motor nerve to 
produce a definite motion in the necessary muscles. It 
follows that in no case does the soul produce the motion 
by its own direct action, and by going itself into the 
details, it always produces, however, a certain inner 
condition in itself (of wish, will or desire). This con- 
dition is connected, by a natural law quite unapproach- 
able by consciousness and independent of the will, with 
the production of a motion as its result. 

It is, therefore, only necessary to learn the various 
conditions of the soul which in this way become the 
occasion of bodily movements. 

§2. In the living body ceaseless changes are going on 
which affect the motor nerves and produce motions, in 
the production of which the soul does not participate. 
They are, nevertheless, important, for it is only by 
seeing that motions occur spontaneously that the soul 
of an animal can reach the thought that its body is 



64 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

movable, arid that its motions are connected with its 
own inner conditions — an idea it could never attain if 
it lived in a body never set in motion either by itself or 
some external cause. 

§3. The reflex motions may be distinguished as a 
special class. Such motions take place when an excite- 
ment of a sensitive nerve produced by an external or 
internal irritation is so transferred without the aid of 
the mind in the central organ, to motory nerves that, at 
a stroke, the group of muscles necessary to the appro- 
priate motion is excited to motion. A conscious sensa- 
tion may accompany this act, or the excitement may 
produce the motion and avoid appearing in conscious- 
ness. 

Many of these motions, such as coughing and sneez- 
ing, the movements of the pupil of the eye when 
affected by light, are reactions arranged for by nature in 
the structure of the body as protection against injury. 
That they are certainly mechanical results of the excite- 
ments is proven by the fact that they take place 
involuntarily, neither can they be prevented by the will 
but only by artificial hindrances. 

§4. In the mimic and physiognomic motions — 
laughing, crying, sobbing and the like — the point of 
departure is, in the first instance, a psychical condition, 
namely, of the feelings, and they are all very difficult to 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 65 

artificially imitate, and then only when one purposely 
projects himself by fancy into the same state of the 
feelings which is their real cause. 

All these motions, however, take place without know- 
ledge either of their origin or use, for one can not 
explain why he must laugh in joy and cry in pain, 
rgther than the reverse. 

They are, therefore, motions which are connected by 
a natural law, which is neither invented nor well 
understood by us, with states of our feelings, as being 
their actual results. 

§5. A fourth class is formed by the imitative motions, 
as, for example, those made when the observer uncon- 
sciously imitates the blows of the boxers or of those 
playing at ten pins, and when the uneducated narrator 
imitates the motions described. In this case it is the 
conception — and that of a definite motion — which, 
without further knowledge or volition ; is translated 
spontaneously into the motion. To this class belong- 
most of our daily motions which we often even call acts. 
As soon as, at the conclusion of a train of thought, the 
conception of a motion founded upon it springs up and no 
resistance is offered it in any quarter, this concept passes 
over spontaneously into a motion without a distinct- 
impulse of the will needing to be exerted or perceived. 

This applies particularly to acquired accomplishments, 
as of writing or piano-playing, where the simple con- 



66 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

ception of the production of a sound produces the nec- 
essary movements without any distinct conception of 
these motions being developed in consciousness. 

§6 These considerations appear to constitute a dis- 
tinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. Tn 
fact, they do not. Let our convictions of the nature of 
the will, to be developed later, be what it may, nothing 
can be ascribed to it but willing. It can only produce a 
result when a given change in the condition of a motor 
nerve is combined with a given decision of the will, as 
the spiritual conditioning agent, by a natural law inde- 
pendent of it. When this is not the case the will 
remains a useless wish without result. 

An act is voluntary if the internal initiatory condi- 
tions from which an act springs are approved, adopted, or 
controlled by the Avill when they have taken place. Invol- 
untary is every one which, although it, mechanically con- 
sidered, springs from the same initiatory point and pro- 
ceeds in the same Avay, does not experience such approval. 

The control of the will may be likened to our use of 
the Alphabet. We can not devise new sounds or let- 
ters but are limited to those which the organs of speech 
makes possible, but we can combine these in endless 
variety. In like manner, the soul, in that it combines the 
initiatory conditions as it pleases, may unite these ele- 
ments of corporeal origin — motions — into the most 
varied processes and thus affect the expression of its will. 



PART SECOND. 



THE SOUL. 
(THEORETICAL PSYCHOLOGY.) 



CHAPTER FIRST. 
ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL. 

§1, After this enumeration of the individual elements 
of the inner life we inquire concerning the nature of 
the subject in which they inhere or are made possible. 

Our final conclusion will be most simply developed by 
using those provisional views which we are accustomed 
to at first employ, and then gradually transforming 
them in order to adapt them to encounter difficulties 
with which, in their earlier form, they could not cope. 
It must be remembered that everything can not be said 
at once, and that only the final form which our view 
assumes is our ultimate conviction. 

§2. The permanent union of the spiritual life with 
the bodily, in which alone it becomes the object of 
observation, makes the attempt natural to regard it as 
simply a product of bodily functions. 

However, it is an old discovery, recently newly made, 
and by no means wanting in truth, that out of all 
combinations of material conditions the origin of a 
spiritual condition of the soul never becomes analytic- 
ally conceivable; or. more simply expressed, if we 
think of material elements in such a way as to predic- 



72 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

ate of them nothing which does not belong to the notion 
of matter, if we simply conceive of them as entities in 
space which are moveable and may call each other into 
motion by their power; if we, finally, imagine these 
motions of one or many elements as varied or combined 
as we please, there never comes a time when it is self- 
evident that the motions last produced may not longer 
remain motions but must be transformed -into sensa- 
tions. A materialism, therefore, which assumed that a 
spiritual life could spring oat of simply physical condi- 
tions or motions of bodily atoms would be an empty 
assumption, and, in this form, has hardly ever been 
advocated in earnest. 

The materialistic views which have really had adher- 
ents have proceeded from the premise that what we call 
matter is really better than it externally appears. 
It contains in itself the fundamental peculiarity out of 
which the spiritual conditions may develope just as well 
as physical predicates — extension, impenetrability, etc. 
— are developed out of another fundamental peculiarity. 
From this results the new attempt, out of the recip- 
rocal operations of these psychical elementary forces to 
elucidate all the elements of the spiritual life just as its 
bodily life is derived from the reciprocation of the 
physical elementary forces of its constituents. 

§3. This view, though not, on its face, improbable, is 
wrecked upon the fact that it is impossible to explain 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 73 

by it the origin of that unity in consciousness which is 
a fact of experience, and which we are not justified in 
ignoring, simply because it is enigmatical, in order to 
explain more easily the balance of experience. 

If it be said that, just as from two different motions 
a simple resultant is produced so that the plurality of 
the causes producing it is no more seen, so, from a unifi- 
cation of the plurality of psychical motions a complete 
unity of consciousness is formed, this would be an inac- 
curate expression of the analogy drawn from mechanics. 

It is, indeed, true that if two motions act upon one 
and the same indivisible point or physical element, 
they produce a simple resultant. This resultant does not 
hang in the air, however, but exists onty as a condition 
of the simple element upon which the components oper- 
ated. Thus completed, this analogy does not lead to the 
result expected, but back to the ordinary view, namely, 
that these numerous elements, even if they possessed 
psychical capacities, could only produce the unity of 
consciousness if there existed a single indivisible ele- 
ment upon which all their activities operate, and which 
must be so constituted as to concentrate all these 
impressions in its consciousness. 

§4. If we denote by a, b, z the single bodily ele- 
ments which are assumed to be both physical and psych- 
ical, the question arises, what result would be produced in 
a given time by the reciprocal action of one upon an- 



74 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

other ? Tf they were all similar and under like conditions 
it would hardly fail to happen that at the end of the time 
all would be in a similar state, Z. If this state Z then 
were a consciousness it would be present in our con- 
sciousness with the same content, as many times 
expressed as .the number of elements acting upon one 
another. On the other hand a unity of the conscious- 
ness, aside from this similarity of all the individual 
consciousnesses, would not result. 

In reality, the elements a, b,. . . .Z are not similar, 
but they certainly stand under various conditions 
in the structure of the organism, some of them, on 
account of their restricted nature* and unfavorable 
position, can apprehend vividly but few operations 
from without, others, superior and better situated, clevel- 
ope a much richer consciousness of all the possible con- 
ditions of the others represented in it. Which, now, out 
of the many dissimilar examples of consciousness is ours 
— that which we know by inner experience ? We natur- 
ally would assume that it would be the consciousness of 
the most highly developed element of all — the central 
monad of our body, according to Leibniz. For we find 
the alterations in our body most closely connected 
with the condition of the " I," and very little goes on 
in it which we have reason to ascribe to the activity of 
other central points of consciousness. 

§5. It follows that we do not succeed in evading the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 70 

view of the single and indivisible subject [soul] of our 
consciousness as a distinct part, while the other parts 
constitute a body, i. c, an aggregate of many elements 
which, taken separately, may be related in nature to the 
soul, but in no instance are identical with it. but are 
dissimilar beings. 

This assumption, in itself conceivable, of a soul life 
in every bodily element remains quite useless for the 
explanation of our soul life, for we can not transfer 
ourselves into the condition of these elements. They 
have worth for us simply as they operate as irritants 
upon our soul and thus produce that internal condition 
which is alone known to us. Therefore we may con- 
sider material elements as matter simply. 

The other related assumption, that the soul, on the 
other hand, possesses physical peculiarities, perhaps 
promises to be useful, but the popular consensus has not 
received it, but, rather, has contrasted the soul, as an 
immaterial being, to material elements and thus pro- 
duced the difficulties of the following chapter. 



CHAPTER SECOND. 

THE RECIPROCAL ACTION BETWEEN SOUL AND 
BODY. 

§1. Let the possibility of an immaterial existence be 
admitted (of which more anon) — it is then customary 
to object that, in that case, no reciprocation, at least, 
between it and the body is possible. The latter would 
find on the shadowy soul no point of application for its 
physical forces; the soul would produce no effect upon 
matter by its inner conditions, thus the complete dissim- 
ilarity of the two would prevent all action. 

§2. To this it may be replied, that we deceive our- 
selves if we believe, in any case whatever, that we appre- 
hend the condition of a reciprocation, and if we consider 
that relation between soul and body in which this does 
not occur as an exceptional state of inadaptability. 

If we observe the inner mechanism of a machine and 
the connection of its parts, we think we understand its 
operation because our observation has been able to 
notice various things about it. Upon a little reflection, 
however, we find that we do not understand either of 
the two conditions upon which rests the operation of 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 77 

the machinery, i. e., the cohesion of its parts and the 
transference of the motion. 

Many words may, indeed, be expended upon it, but 
we do not yet know how one element of a solid body 
sets about it to hold fast its neighbor, or how it is able 
to cause the motion with which it is affected to cease 
and to reappear in another part. What we really 
observe in these cases is but the external imagery in 
which a series of processes passes by, each individual of 
which is united with its successor in a completely invis- 
ible and incomprehensible manner. 

In the relations between soul and body we cannot 
follow this series of processes as far as we wish, but if 
we were able to follow it, for example, to the point 
where the physical excitement acts upon the soul, this 
latter transition would, indeed, be quite unintelligible, 
but no whit less comprehensible than the transference 
of a motion from one material element to another. 

§3. The source of the doubt above-mentioned is the 
false assumption, common even in antiquity, that only 
similars can operate one upon another, or be affected by 
each other. 

One can be tempted to make this assumption only by 
considering the activity to be produced simply as a condi- 
tion which is already present in the operating cause a, 
and may be transferred to b without alteration, and, 
consequently, presupposes a similar lodgment in b 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



as in a, and thus a complete parallelism between 
a and b. 

On the other hand, we borrow from metaphysics the 
conviction that such a severing of the condition from 
that of which it is a condition and its transference to 
another subject is completely inconceivable. The effect 
of an a upon a b consists always in the fact that a con- 
dition, A, of a is the occasion which produces, according 
to an universal law, of which nothing is to be said here, 
in b, out of its own nature, the condition B, which, in 
general, need have no similarity to the condition A. 
Even ordinary experience teaches that one and the same 
effect, A, may produce the most various results, accord- 
ing as the objects, b, C, and d, upon which it acts, differ. 

We have, therefore, no right to set up conditions 
which must be fulfilled in order that a may affect b. 
The identity, or similarity of both gives the possibility 
of their operation no greater comprehensibility or plaus- 
ibility than would their dissimilarity or even their 
incompar ability. 

§4. A bond between body and soul is often demanded 
in order to make comprehensible the possibility of their 
reciprocation. However, bonds are only needed to 
unite those things which, of themselves, will not act 
upon each other, but are quite indifferent to each 
other. 

The uniting power of a bond consists in the fact that 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 79 

its elements are united with each other; nevertheless, we 
can not be always supposing new connecting links, but 
come, finally, to an immediate reciprocal action of the 
individual elements which cling together without the 
intervention of any sort of machinery. 

A bond between body and soul would, then, only be 
needed if they were quite indifferent the one to the other. 
If we had such a bond it would not help us, for the 
specific form in which the body would act upon the 
soul and the soul upon the body by means of it would 
depend not upon the bond, but upon the specific nature 
of the two connected elements and their obligation to 
reciprocation. 

Instead of one such bond then, we assume that both 
are connected by many peculiarly formed bonds. Each 
individual reciprocal action to which they are compelled 
by their own nature, is such a bond, which connects, 
not in a general, but in a definite way. 

§5. We proceeded upon the agreement that the 
notion of the soul as an immaterial being is possible. 
Now. however, even this is denied. Only sensuous 
things, it is said, are authenticated by immediate obser- 
vation, super-sensuous are products of phantasy. How- 
ever, only the most primitive view of nature considers 
that Ave apprehend the existence of the objects them- 
selves in their sensuous peculiarities of color, taste, 
hardness, etc. 



80 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

We have been long convinced that all these predi- 
cates are but appearances which originate in onr con- 
sciousness by excitation from without. What really is, 
they do not explain. Actual sensuous perception of 
material elements was early disclaimed by science. 
But it has for a long time, in its notion of the atom, 
conceived of formal elements, similar to the sensuously 
perceived bodies, which are supposed to be formed by 
their combination, that is, very small bodies, having, 
however, a given extension — of unknown, but still 
definite form — and this small volume endowed with 
perfect impenetrability. 

Manifold difficulties complicating this notion have 
led to the attempt in physics to regard the atom as 
completely unextended, or as a point which is distin- 
guished from an abstract point in space simply in that 
it is the focus of forces which operate outwardly, as 
well as the point of application for forces coming from 
without. 

Such a conception as this simply means that the 
atom, in itself, is nothing other than a super-sensuous 
entity, %. e., not only, on account of its minuteness, 
unattainable by our sense, but, by its nature, unattain- 
able by any sensuous apprehension, and that the sen- 
suous apprehensions which, at first, seem to represent 
the real are simply secondary appearances which the 
results of the reflex activities of elements, in them- 
selves entirely super-sensuous, are made known to us. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 81 

Hence the notion, not of the immaterial, but of the 
material requires to be demonstrated, and the gulf which 
seemed to separate body and soul as two completely 
heterogenous elements and thus to prevent their 
reciprocal action really does not exist. 



[Note. — The reader will be interested to compare the ideas briefly set forth in 
this section with the dicta of modern materialism. (Compare the open- 
ing pages of Hermann Ulrici's Leibund Seele). Some of the various phases 
of materialistic thought on the relations of soul and body will be 
gathered from the following seutences : — 

" Will is the necessary expression of a condition of the brain occa- 
sioned by external influences " (Moleschott). 

" Man is but the sum of parents and nurse, of place and time, of air 
and weather, of light and sound, and of food and clothing; " or, accord- 
ing to Feuerbach, " Der Mensch nur ist was er isst," i. <?., Man is but 
what he eats. 

The final ultimatum— "Thought is as much a secretion of the brain 
as bile is of the liver or urine of the kidney 11 (C. Vogt) stands m bold 
contrast to the teaching of our author here and elsewhere.— C. L. H.] 



CHAPTER THIRD. 
THE SEAT OF THE SOUL. 

§1. A.11 immaterial being can have no extension but 
may have place, and we define this as the point to 
which all effects from without must be transferred in 
order to produce an impression upon this being, and 
from which alone this being exerts its immediate activ- 
ities upon the environment. 

In regard to the soul, no one questions that it is only 
present within its own body and here only acts immedi- 
ately upon its environment by the agency of the body. 

§2. It has been attempted to conceive of the soul's 
special relation to the body according to the analogy of 
our conception of the omnipresence of God. We under- 
stand by this that God is as near with immediate 
efficiency to one point of the world as to every other, 
that his will neither requires to pass over any distance 
to reach the world element z nor needs any intermedi- 
ary means to apply it to z. But we do not, by any 
means, understand that the unlimited extent of the 
arena which God thus rules applies to himself as a per- 
sonal peculiarity. 

In like manner, it is conceived, the soul, without 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 83 

extension in space itself, is, in its own body, all-present. 
This analogy is, however, quite unserviceable. We 
have already seen in the discussion of feelings of 
double contact how nature succeeds in producing the 
illusion, so indispensable to the beatification of our life, 
that we are present with immediate sensation and 
motion in every part of our body. 

On the other hand, physiological experiments show 
that the soul stands only in immediate reciprocation 
with the central organ of the nervous system, with the 
entire remainder of the body, however, only mediately, 
through the nerves themselves. 

§3. We are accustomed to assume of a physical force 
that it operates in infinite distances without intermediate 
mechanism. It operates, however, in diminishing ratio, 
in that the intensity of its activity diminishes with the 
distance. 

According to the first condition, we may say of that 
body which is the conveyer of the force, it is univer- 
sally distributed in space; according to the second, how- 
ever, we must confine it to a limited space, that is, 
where the activity is greatest. This analogy is also 
quite inapplicable. The slightest discontinuity in a 
nerve, even in closest proximity to the brain, destroys 
the reciprocation with the soul throughout the entire 
region supplied by it. It has, therefore, no force opera- 
tive at a distance which can overleap this separation. 



84 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The third analogy alone remains, i. e., that of opera- 
tions which take place in contact through transmission 
of motions. 

§4. This analogy has been chiefly followed, and it 
has been attempted to find such a point in the central 
organ in which all sensitive nerves unite in order to deliver 
up their messages, and from which all motor nerves 
spring in order to distribute the excitements received to 
the body. This conception not only has certain inter- 
nal difficulties, but it, in general, does not agree with 
our empirical knowledge. Not only has such a central 
point of the entire nervous organism not been found 
thus far, but we have well-founded reason to assert 
that it never will be.* 

The question now arises how, under these circum- 
stances, the notion of a seat of the soul can be held ? 

§5, We return to our original definition, but extend it 
as follows : — We err when we assert that because a thing 
is in a given place it can act upon that environment. 
As long as we neglect the activity it is impossible to say 
what is meant by a thing's being in a place nor how it 
differs from its existence in another place where it 
would be exactly as well situated as in this one. 

We think the order of thought ought to be reversed, 

*See Part Third — Functions of the optic thalmus aud corpora striata. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 85 

and should say if it is in the nature of a being, a, to 
reciprocate activities with b, C, d, then, by this fact, its 
systematic position is determined, and, in the arrange- 
ment of the world in space, it is that point of which 
the immediate surroundings are formed by b, C, and d, 

But the connection of all things may, in general, be 
so man}^-sided that an element, a, is not only deter- 
mined to reciprocate with the group b, C, d, but equally 
immediately with p, q, r, while p, q, and r, on account 
of other relations in which they stand, cause its system- 
atic position, and hence its position in space, not to be 
near them, but separated from them by an interval. In 
this case the active element a would not have one, but, 
with the same degree of truth, several positions in space 
without being sub-divided into a plurality, just as we 
conceived of God as omnipresent, but not himself 
extended. 

Omnipresence, of course, includes all space, here, 
however, we must assert that the immaterial being 
must have several distinct seats which are separated by 
intermediate spaces in which their presence does not in 
the same sense reside. 

Nevertheless, no real difficulty inheres in this view. 
We have simply to rise above the power of ordinary 
training which leads us to conceive of the immaterial 
being according to the analogy of bodily atoms, and, 
therefore, ascribe to it a sensible, limited magnitude 
and form, and hence but a single position in space. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



i . 



§6. The question remains why certain portions of the 
brain have the preference as seat of the soul over 
others, although, so far as we know, there are no 
remarkable differences in the structure or arrangement. 
Here also we must alter the ordinary conception. A 
single element, a> is not designed to always stand recip- 
rocated with one kind of element, b, but not with 
another, c. Every being, a, is affected or excited to 
activity solely by what takes place in other beings. Let 
this activity be denoted by x, which, according to uni- 
versal natural law, is the operative premise from which 
it is designed that a new condition shall be produced in 
a, then it is produced, and a receives this influence, 
whether it is originated in b or C. On the other hand, 
if x is not such a premise, a remains indifferent and un- 
changed whether x occurs in b or c. In exactly the 
same way the soul will enter into reciprocity only with 
those points in the central organ in which all the com- 
binations, adjustments and rearrangements of physical 
excitations are carried on after the completion of which 
alone these can rise up into consciousness of the soul, or 
which are, in other words, the legitimate stimuli of its 
activities. 

§7. If one were able, therefore, to observe microscopic- 
ally as accurately what goes on within the brain as we may 
observe the anatomical structure, it would appear super- 
ficially just as assumed by materialism; i. e., in various 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 87 

points of the brain individual psychical processes would 
proceed at the instigation of physical processes there 
taking place, and the unit being of the soul would never 
appear as the object of such observation. However, we 
do not accept the interpretation given by materialism 
for these facts. 

These psychical functions do not take place as self- 
evident appendages or products of the physical processes, 
they can only be conceived as possible if the latter act 
simply as excitements operating upon the peculiar 
nature of that soul-being which is omnipresent within 
these limits and not confined to a point, and thus lead- 
ing to the exercise of its own peculiar faculties. 



CHAPTER FOURTH. 

THE RELATION OF THE SOUL TO TIME. 

§1. Experience could only lead us to the conclu- 
sion that the soul originates and dies with the body. 
Necessities, foreign to these theoretical investigations, 
have excited the desire to establish its immortality, 
and this has been attempted by including it under the 
notion of a substance which contains, even in its own 
nature, the quality of indestructibility. 

This subordination leads to two undesirable results 
which would gladly be avoided, namely, the reasons by 
which the human soul may be included under the notion 
of substance would apply equally to every animal soul. 
On the other hand, this indestructibility pre-supposes 
not only immortality after death, but endless existence 
before birth, and thus we do not know where to begin; 
nor does experience give us any evidence of such pre- 
vious existence. 

Finally, it would be asked, if the notion of substance 
contains such an unavoidable .difficulty, is it, after all 
useful, and not rather a simple figment of the brain, 
and whether, in the former case, the soul would belong 
to that class which should be included in it. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 89 

§2. In fact, substance is but a name for everything 
which is able to act upon others, to be acted upon, or to 
sustain various conditions and, in these changes, 
remains the same as a permanent unit. 

On the other hand, it is a figment of the brain to be- 
lieve that further explanation can be adduced as to how 
the faculty for such conduct is originated, and to seek 
this explanation by conceiving of a bit of rigid and 
indistructible substance in each thing, around which 
nucleus the other peculiarities or conditions, by the 
which one such thing differs from another, are grouped. 
Such a notion, when applied, shows itself ever com- 
pletely unfruitful in explaining those appearances for 
which it was assumed. 

It does not appear how such a substantial nucleus 
can be consistent with the plurality and changeability of 
the peculiarities which we are accustomed to assume 
(by the use of a word without significance) "inhere" 
in it. Briefly, then, things are not things because a 
substance is concealed in them, but, since they are as 
they are, and conduct themselves as they do, they pro- 
duce in our phantasy the false appearance of such a 
substance as the cause of their conduct. 

The soul, then, inasmuch as it, as unit-subject of its 
inner conditions, conceives not only of others but is 
conscious of itself, deserves, in the highest degree, the 
title of a substance or being. 

But this, on the other hand, does not at all justify 



90 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the assertion that this capacity, if once exercised, must 
hen always be exercised, and cannot, in the career of 
the thing, be originated or cease to be. 

§3. For the decision of this matter we borrow from 
metaphysics a demonstration which stands opposed to the 
conception to which the study of nature has accustomed 
us. For the latter attempts to explain the course of 
nature by assuming a multiplicity of original elements, 
of which each might exist if the others did not, and 
which, further, have, in themselves, no necessary 
connection one with another, but are either brought 
into such relation or else had somehow been placed 
there, and which, finally, are obliged by general laws to 
exert one reciprocal action in one relation and another 
in another relation. 

On the other hand, we briefly assert that really no 
effect of one element upon another is conceivable with- 
out contradiction as long as they conceived of as origin- 
ally independent and unrelated one to another. It is 
only possible if we consider them as dependent modifi- 
cations of a single actual being which is in them all as 
the ground of their existence and, further, the reason 
why they are obliged, under definite conditions, to act 
in a definite manner, and, finally, as that which makes the 
fulfilment of the above-described obligations possible; 
or, otherwise expressed, all things are not what they are, 
neither do they act as they do because of an endowment 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 91 

of their nature which belonged to them before the 
world was. Neither was the world, at a later period, 
obliged to conform to them, so that there was only pro- 
duced, in consequence, what was permitted by these 
postulates. But they all exist, and operate as commis- 
sioned by this single absolute being; and all that we 
generally consider as the final unalterable elements and 
laws of nature have this in variableness and value only 
in conformity to the plan for the fulfilment of which 
they were ordained. 

This view was not invented to satisfy the present 
requirements, it is, rather, necessary in order to compre- 
hend the simplest effect of one element upon another, 
but it is applicable to our case. 

It may lie within the bounds of possibility that all 
these varying appearances are produced by combinations 
of unchangeable elements at the dictation of universal 
laws. For this reason, then, there are in the world 
those constant quantities whose activities always occur 
in the same way and which are but the actions con- 
stantly produced or sustained by each individual exist- 
ence. But it also lies within possibility that there 
are other elements, only appearing in given points of 
time in the course of nature, namely, when all the 
conditions are met which, according to the universal 
plan, can bring them into being. 

There is no reason why these elements, when once 
produced should not conduct themselves as simple, 



92 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

inde visible and independent foci of converging and 
diverging activities. 

Among these elements we number the soul. A 
further question- — how these are brought into that con- 
dition of independence — we dismiss as out of place. Nor 
can we explain how it is, or was brought about, that 
those constant elements exist and continue eternally. 

§5, At the place and moment in which, in the course 
of physical nature, the embryo of an organic being is 
formed, the soul belonging to the organism is formed 
out of that universal being everywhere present, and 
this act is a consequent of that physical process. Super- 
ficially viewed, materialism seems to be correct in 
stating that the soul originates in and with (not, how- 
ever, out of. and through) the body. And it is useless to 
question regarding the manner in which it appears, as 
it were, from without simultaneously with the body. 

So far as immortality is concerned, it is not a subject 
to be decided upon from a theoretical standpoint. 
We hold, as of general applicability, only the funda- 
mental law that whatever has once been formed will 
endure as long as it has an unaltered value for the 
coherence of the world, but will self -evidently cease to 
exist as soon as this is not the case. Yet this law is not 
applicable in our hands, we cannot presume to say what 
may constitute the merit which produces the perman- 
ence, or the lack which makes it impossible. 



CHAPTER FIFTH. 

THE SOUL'S ESSENCE. 

§1. In investigating the essence of a thing we may 
first inquire how this thing differs from another; 
second, how it is that the content thus indicated can 
exist as a real thing. 

The second question may be answered in the case of 
objects whose distinctive peculiarities consist only in 
the form of a material previously existing. In this 
case we usually consider matter as the "being," and 
the form as unessential. But simple matter, like every 
simple being, cannot be continually derived from some- 
thing different from itself. 

We have often before dismissed, as unanswerable, 
the questions how it is that any content can exist, and 
act and be acted upon as a thing. Our inquiries must, 
then, be what are the peculiar characteristics consti- 
tuting the soul's real being, by which it is distinguish- 
able from other substances. 

We can only learn of the nature of each thing, and 
in like manner of matter, through its operations and 
effects. It is, therefore, not an error, but the natural 
method of psychology to define the nature of the soul 
thus reversely. 



94 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The first systematic attempt, in the doctrine of 
the faculties of the soul, has remained unfruitful. 
The multitudinous psychical activities were classified 
according to their resemblances, and it was, indeed, cor- 
rect to ascribe to each such group of actually produced 
activities a faculty. 

However, this notion was not as fruitful as that of 
force in physics, for the physicist only seriously speaks 
of a force when, not only the form of the effect is 
known, but when a law can be given, according to 
which its magnitude varies in proportion to the varia- 
tion in certain conditions. 

The faculties of the soul, on the other hand, were 
simply abstracted from the form of the activities and 
no law was found for them, thus simply a tautology 
was reached as, for example, in the statement that the 
faculty of sensation produces sensation without ex- 
plaining under what conditions. 

On the other hand physics has been successful only 
in so far as it has reduced all natural processes to 
motions of masses, By means of this similarity in the 
processes it was possible to accurately define the result 
obtained by the simultaneous and combined operation 
of various forces upon the same object. But psych- 
ical conditions can not be reduced to such a common 
standard. 

We have no idea of what would result from the com- 
bined action of the faculties of susceptibility and of 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. . 95 

conception. What is known concerning it is derived 
independently of it from experience and a knowledge of 
humanity. 

Both these deficiencies are not to be removed by any 
better carrying out of the theory. It can only serve, 
then, as a convenient catalogue of spiritual activities 
but not as an explanation of them. 

§3. The unproductiveness of this theory, and the poor 
standard it supplies for the connection of the various 
faculties (which it alwa}^s viewed as the expressions of 
an individual soul) induced Herbart to attempt the 
explanation of all these spiritual activities and fac- 
ulties as a series of results springing successively from 
a single primitive activity of the soul. 

The soul was considered as one of the super-sensuous, 
absolute beings of completely simple nature, which 
always remain unchanged if undisturbed, and yet, when 
they are affected by external irritants which would 
produce disturbances in their nature put forth activ- 
ities for self preservation. And these self-preservative 
efforts vary with the disturbances producing them. 

In the case of other real beings, as, for example, those 
composed of matter, we can know nothing of the 
character of this process of restoring the equilibrium. 
In the soul, on the other hand, we know, or dare to 
assume, that they, in general, are in the form of con- 
ceptions. 



96 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

By means of physical irritations, which Herbart did 
not follow further, the soul is induced to put forth this 
reaction, and the conceptions here occurring, i. e., of 
simple sensations, a definite color, sound or taste, are 
the simple elements through the farther reciprocation 
of which results the whole of the remainder of the soul 
life. 

We mention here, gratefully, only the previously 
mentioned explanation which elucidates the process of 
conception according to general mechanical laws. 

On the other hand, we cannot agree with the attempt 
to derive all the higher activities of the soul as inde- 
pendent mechanical products of this process of conception 
without the supposition of some faculty in it not yet men- 
tioned. This law was not indeed, considered necessary, for 
Herbart himself admitted that even the simplest sensa- 
tions group themselves in entirely distinct classes, 
colors, sounds, tastes, none of which are derivable one 
from another; that the soul thus really possess quite 
distinct faculties which we cannot derive from that 
unity which we still insist upon. 

Nothing, then, was to prevent the assumption that 
these sensations and their relations among one another 
operate as new stimuli upon the soul unit, and then 
produce entirely new reactions which it would, how- 
ever^ be impossible to derive from these sources them- 
selves. 

Such an assumption would only be met by the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 97 

demonstration that it is unnecessary, and that really 
all the higher activities are quite independent results 
of the reciprocal attrition of the simplest concepts. 
This demonstration has not succeeded as may be seen 
from the following examples. 

§1. We have already found it impossible that a soul, 
were it but a conceiving being, should conceive of 
relations between its concepts other than they really 
are, for example, as though they were in space while 
they are not. If it does so, then it must add to this 
actual existence something new from its own nature 
which is not derived from the thing itself. In like 
manner it was found impossible to consider attention 
as simply the intensity of the conception itself; the 
subject which exerts all the applying activities in which 
the real office of attention consists would, in that case, 
be entirely wanting. We now find it quite impossible 
to consider feelings of pleasure or displeasure as inde- 
pendent results of the various positions in which the 
conceptions, during their progress, may become related 
one to another. If the soul were simply a conceiving 
being it would conceive all these facts accurately and 
indifferently, even though they were fraught with its own 
destruction. The fact that it partakes in an interest in 
them is a new fact which must proceed from some other 
peculiarity of its own existence. 

Finally, no one could be persuaded that what we 



98 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

mean when we say " I will " signifies simply the access 
of a conception into consciousness through a conflict 
with forces which attempt to prevent it. 

However obscure and inexplicable the idea that in 
this case we have to deal with an act and not simply a 
happening — an act produced by ourselves, the unit- 
subject of our world of concepts — yet the fact itself 
which we thus designate and discover immediately in 
inner experience cannot be displaced by this hypo- 
thesis which throughout explains nothing, any more 
than the appearance only of such an act could 
present itself to us as distinguished from its simple 
occurrence. 

We close, then, with the conviction that it is possible 
and necessary to credit to the unit-being of the soul 
more than a simple adaptability for conceptions, and 
that even these reactions of the first order which take 
place as a result of external stimuli, in the form of 
conceptions, may, by their relations and combinations? 
become new stimuli by means of which faculties of the 
soul not before affected are excited to expression. 

§5. The explanation of the origin of the higher 
spiritual activities from the lower must be given up. In 
the place of such a mechanical construction, another 
view may be presented, which affirms that the sum of 
spiritual expressions, let them originate as they may, 
are, at any rate, suited to one another, and necessary, 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 99 

hence, those ideas which express the destiny of the soul 
are completely realized. 

The Idealistic systems, and particularly latterly 
that of Hegel, made this attempt. According to 
these, the world in general is not a simple fact, 
it has also a meaning. In this whole every individual 
has its definite position, and the being of each thing 
consists really in the partial idea with the real- 
ization of which it is intrusted and through which .it 
contributes its own to the unbroken whole of the 
ultimate or universal idea of the world. 

If we can formulate an accurate exhaustive expres- 
sion for this ultimate idea, we can derive from it the 
form of each thing, the totality of the faculties neces- 
sary to it, and, finally, the general laws according to 
which these must operate in order to reach that con- 
summation. 

As, however, that definition is impossible, instead of 
a scientific deduction, capable of proof and counter 
proof, we must accept one which comb nes, with more 
or less taste, more or less of aesthetic correctness, the 
single spiritual activities with such a comprehensive 
expression as may have been found for this ultimate 
idea. 

The learned conceptions which are possible in the 
premises, and which have not been wanting have, 
moreover, become one-sided on account of an historic 
circumstance. 



100 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The question concerning the method and truth of 
our knowledge or concerning the relation between 
subject and object has so absorbed all attention that the 
process by which the existing being becomes conscious 
of its own existence, i. e.* the development of self- 
consciousness is considered the real goal or the final 
content of the entire world-system. The soul appears 
simply designed for the solution of the problem of self- 
consciousness within the earthly life, and the various 
forms in which this office of pure intelligence is gradu- 
ally performed fill nearly the whole field of psychology. 

The content of this, however — that which is sensuously 
perceived, or viewed, or conceived — on the other hand, is 
quite as much neglected as the entire remainder of the 
soul life, of susceptibility and volition, which only 
comes under consideration in as far as it can be applied 
to this problem of self-objectivity. 



CHAPTER SIXTH. 
THE MUTABLE CONDITION OF THE SOUL. 

§1. The life of the soul consists, not in a uniform 
possession, but in the varying operation of its faculties. 
In this it is in most obvious dependence upon the body. 
The opportunity afforded by certain disturbances of the 
body has made it possible to defiue this dependence 
more accurately. 

Three interpretations of the observations made con- 
cerning them are, however, possible. Firstly, the organ 
disturbed may be the operative cause of the spiritual 
function which can not, therefore, be performed after 
its disarrangement; secondly, this organ may be the 
sole transmitter of the irritations necessary to the soul 
in order that it may be induced to put forth a function 
otherwise explicable out of its nature; or, thirdly, the 
disturbance may exert, either directly or by means of 
alterations which it induces in other organs, a positive 
activity of a repressive sort upon the soul, and this 
prevents, for a time, the expression of the faculty which 
itself persists. 

Only the first of these interpretations appears unten- 
able on account of the impossibility of considering 
psychical functions as self-evident products of physical 



102 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

processes. If we wish to prove the two factors actually 
connected, one or the other of the last mentioned inter- 
pretations would be necessary in every individual case, 
the first alone would require further demonstration. 

§2. If we understand by consciousness that which we 
more explicitly call the condition of wakefulness, the 
question arises upon what depends its opposite, i. e., 
unconsciousness, the first example of which is normal 
sleep. In relation to this, it is plain that, in general, 
both methods of explanation are admissible, but that 
the entrance of sleep and the possibility of its inter- 
mission does not indicate an exhaustion of the nervous 
forces, so that they, consequently, are not able to pro- 
duce the necessary stimuli to continue wakefulness, buti 
rather, a positive hindrance, in various directions 
minute, but as a total, constituting the feeling of 
weariness which lessens the interest of the soul in the 
carrying on of the train of thought and which, by 
means of this abandonment on the part of the soul, is 
increased in its effectiveness. 

Instantaneous unconsciousness from fear appears to 
originate in the same way. Considered as simply a phys- 
ical stimulus the frightful vision or the news heard is very 
insignificant and harmless. Only after our reflection, 
which considers the significance of it in its entire con- 
nection with our existence does this perception acquire 
its fearful power. Then the process of our spiritual 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 103 

life may be disturbed immediately, and the bodily insen- 
sibility following may be simply the reaction of these 
psychical disturbances. This view is not entirely 
excluded in the case of unconsciousness in sickness or 
after injuries of the brain. The restricting influences 
are felt partly in the form of pain, but not necessarily 
so. As we are quite unconscious of the conditions 
prevailing in our nerves previous to sensation and only 
the latter enters consciousness, so, likewise, the con- 
sciousness may disappear without the workings of the 
forces which quenched it becoming objects of percep- 
tion. 

§3. It has, in recent times, been frequently thought 
that the activities of certain irritations conduce to the 
continuance of wakefulness and their absence to the 
production of unconsciousness. 

It is concluded from experiments upon hypnotism 
that in the complete exclusion of external excitements 
of sense and prevention of motion the entire spiritual 
activity is so reduced that the state of wakefulness 
cannot be maintained, but complete unconsciousness 
takes place, a process which has been in a few cases 
observed in human beings, but which affords no trust- 
worthy conclusion. Moreover, we know that when 
interest is not excited by some inner activity of the 
mind, as in a state of ennui, even the operation of 
external irritants does not prevent falling asleep. 



104 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Positive agencies are also known which dispose to sleep, 
such are, a multitude of regularly recurring rythmic 
motions of the body, rocking, knitting, combing, the 
continuous viewing of large illuminated uniform sur- 
faces, the convergence of the axes of the eyes in 
squinting, etc. Lastly, the manipulations of the mes- 
merist belong here. 

Nevertheless, upon none of these methods can certain 
conclusions be formed, for the instances of their inop- 
eration are extremely frequent, and admit of a supposi- 
tion of a co-operating condition as yet unknown. In 
all cases, however, at the very most, only the external 
conditio^ on the one hand^ and its effects, on the other, 
are known, while the intermediate processes which con- 
nect the one with the other are quite obscure. 

§L If the minimum activity of the waking condition, 
i. e., sensation of external impressions, be exerted, it 
does not of necessity follow that the next higher activ- 
ity, i. e., the consciousness of the relations between the 
individual impressions, should be present at the same 
time. 

It is well-known that in our daily experience, this 
latter activity may be absent, as when, for example, we 
follow with attention some chain of thought to which 
these impressions are foreign, or when we are excited 
by painful emotions. 

There are, however, pathological derangements, of a 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 105 

nature, indeed, as yet unknown, which produce inadapt- 
ability for the unification or understanding of impres- 
sions perceived in sense. 

§5. We do not need to assume a corporeal basis to 
explain the retention of the conception once received, 
i. e., the fact of memory. For even in material ele- 
ments we cannot discover how far it is their materiality 
which causes the observed persistence of their condi- 
tions. 

On this account it would be equally pertinent to 
ascribe this peculiarity to every immaterial subject 
which is capable of acting or receiving action. 

However, the necessity of thinking of a vast number 
of various mixed impressions enduring within the com- 
plete unity of the soul favors the other view that this 
necessity would be better satisfied by assuming a large 
number of elements. Not as though the impressions 
produce a condition of quiescence by their reactions, 
but, rather, according to the analogy of light and sound 
waves, motions are assumed which extend over many 
elements and, unperceived, after interaction, undergo 
further development. Nevertheless, it would be imposs- 
ible to use this general analogy further in detail. 

Each image of an approaching object would, in each 
instant, be the source of new vibrations which do not 
obscure the previous one. How a single concept of the 
object can result out of these; again, how two simult- 



106 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

aneous motions can associate themselves so that the 
renewal of the one should reproduce the other without 
the production of a new impact; finally, how it hap- 
pens that one motion, which belongs to a partial 
impression of a complex image, awakens exactly those 
others which belong with it as parts of the same image 
— for all these questions a physical analogy is wanting. 
Although this discussion seems to make a corporeal 
basis unnecessary, still, pathological observations show 
that it is, in some form, present. 

The fact that those events immediately prior to the 
outbreak of an illness frequently are forgotten may be 
explained by the fact that their concepts had associated 
themselves with a sense of illness which is not present 
after convalesence, so that the key is wanting the touch 
of which alone could reproduce them in memory. 

Nevertheless, other facts — the impossibility of recall- 
ing certain similar groups of concepts, for example, sir- 
names or single sayings — do not admit of explanation. 

§ft. The unconsciousness of sleep is of various degrees 
of intensity which can be measured by the magnitude 
of the excitements necessary to waking. 

It is often incomplete in so far that, for example, 
irritations of the senses of feeling and hearing operate 
upon the consciousness and produce the consequent 
sensations. 

As, however, in sleep, that attention, which is 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 107 

exerted intentionally during wakefulness, and which is 
then conscious of the complete connection between the 
surrounding objects, chiefly through the instrument- 
ality of the sense of sight, is absent, the sensations 
reproduce themselves without the selection of those 
which are apparently connected by their contents, or 
are brought into connection by some prior process of 
conception. Upon this fact depends the fantastic char- 
acter of dreams, which very frequently collect about a 
very small nucleus of actual sensation complex imagery 
which, although concordant, is not in reality connected 
in the least with it. 

This activity of consciousness may so increase as to 
permit the correct answering of questions, and it thus 
becomes possible for those who are awake to direct, to 
a certain extent, the train of thought and, perhaps, even 
the actions of the sleeper, for no presiding conscious- 
ness of actual relations and the personal condition 
opposes the direct translation of the conception excited 
into the resulting motion. 

§7. We ascribe considerable influence over the pro- 
cess of all spiritual conditions to the temperaments, by 
which is simply meant an expression for the amount 
and kind of excitability to external impressions; the 
greater or less extent to which the excited conception 
reproduces others; the rapidity with which concepts 
vary; the intensity with which they unite with them- 



108 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

selves feelings of pleasure and pain ; and the ease with 
which external acts associate themselves with them. 
Notwithstanding the infinite variety of temperaments 
considered in this sense, there may be mentioned the 
four common ones as the most definite types: — 

The sanguine, exceedingly mutable and with vivid 
excitability; the phlegmatic, with slightly varied and 
slow, but not on this account feeble, reactions ; the 
choloric, with one-sided receptivity and great energy in 
certain directions; the sentimental (in place of the 
melancholic), distinguished by especial receptivity to 
the susceptibilities of all possible relations, but which is 
not affected by the simply matter-of-fact. 

It is necessary to avoid confusing the temperaments 
with various pathological conditions or peculiarities of 
character, although it is clear that each temperament 
has its strong and weak side for moral culture and 
bodily health. We have no definite knowledge con- 
cerning the corporeal basis of the temperaments. 

§8. Phrenology or Cranioscopy has claimed to dis- 
cover, by external indications, a series of organs for the 
individual spiritual functions. 

This is, indeed, without any foundation, in as far as 
it sought to define the position of these organs and to 
separate them in space. On the other hand, it is not 
entirely in error when viewing certain external forma- 
tions as simply the indications which show that the, 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 109 

otherwise unknown, conditions exist, upon which actu- 
ally depend, we know not how, the particular intensity 
of these functions. 

It is prevented from becoming such a useful collec- 
tion of facts, however, by another fault. Only those 
functions or talents can be taken into account which 
are not ambiguous and, when present cannot be well 
concealed nor yet counterfeited when absent, for exam- 
ple, musical, artistic or mathematical talents, of all 
which we have actual examples enough of inheritance 
in a family. 

But peculiarities of character which can be estimated 
only by a delicate knowledge of human nature, and not 
even then with certainty, and which, in a given case, 
may be the product, not simply of natural abilities, but 
of education and accident, are not at all adapted to this 
determination, although often so used. 

§9. A Sensor ium commune and, more recently, a 
motorium commune have been distinguished. The 
necessary activity of the first results from the fact that 
the individual impressions cannot become objects of 
the cognition of the soul as such but only after com- 
bination or some other adjustment. The organ has this 
office, the simple collection of the impressions into 
one place seems unnecessary. How far this process 
extends we do not know, apparently it may be related 
to the previously explained process of apprehension of 



110 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

space, to which, perhaps, a large part of the brain is 
dedicated. 

It would be assumed concerning a motorium commune 
that it combines the individual roots of the motor 
nerves in such various ways that there results a series 
of subordinated centres, each of which needs but a 
single impulse in order to set in motion at once many 
properly combined activities. The sort of effect which 
the soul exerts upon these points is certainly incorrectly 
conceived, if it be assumed that the impulses coming 
from the soul are of identical sorts and only distin- 
guished in their effects by the direction which they 
take, and hence the various termini which they finally 
reach. 

The determination of such a direction would be 
impossible unless the soul possessed a knowledge of the 
structure of the brain with which we cannot credit it. 
We assume, therefore, on the contrary, that every 
concept of motion, a, which arises in the soul is a 
qualitatively different condition from another concept 
of motion, fo. 

To a belongs the resulting condition A, to b, another, 
B. Both these conditions can only take place in those 
points of the nervous system which are adapted by 
their organization to be excited thereby, just as a glass, 
for example, only responds to those tones which are 
capable of producing vibrations in it by impact. The 
impulses of the soul do not, then, require to be directed, 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Ill 

but find the place for their application spontaneously. 
It should not be understood, however, that they require 
to pass over a distance from a given point to that place. 

We should conceive the function of the organ of 
speech in a similar way, this being the only one which 
has, with considerable certainty, been referred to a 
definite spot in the hemispheres of the cerebrum. 

Injury of this spot prevents the possibility of com- 
bining the conceived sound-pictures of a word with the 
excitement of motions in the muscles of speech by 
which the actual articulation of the sound is produced. 

Although we can form but little conception of the 
sort of activity incumbent upon the organ, we are yet 
more in the dark as to the method by which such a dis- 
turbance in its activity can be produced as takes place 
in a pathological state of aphony. 

§10. For the higher spiritual faculties which consist 
in the judgment upon relations of given concepts, we 
do not know how to prove empirically a definite cor- 
poreal organ, nor yet how to conceive how such an one 
would subserve for the solution of the important part 
of the problem, i. e., the production of the act of judg- 
ment itself. 

It is conceivable, on the other hand, that this higher 
activity might be the complete and clear representation 
of those contents upon which judgment is to be passed, 
and hence might be considered but the undisturbed 



112 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

function of those organs which contribute, first, to the 
sensuous perceptions, then, to their reproduction and 
connection with others, finally, to the proper connec- 
tion with the feelings of the value of each. 

§11. There remains to be considered a large number 
of statements concerning abnormal spiritual activities 
in conditions of bodily ailment. The various instances 
of such cases are not all equally incredible. The assump- 
tion that cases exist of an immediate communication of 
consciousness with distant parts of the external world 
without the agency of the physical, cannot be dismissed 
a priori, for all mediate perception must be reduced, in 
the last instance to immediate. Experience only can 
teach us when physical mediation is present and when 
not. Certain it is that the entire wakeful and spiritual 
life, which alone is amenable to accurate experimenta- 
tion, is connected with the external world by physical 
mediation. 

Senseless is the assumption, on the other hand, 
that the given appearances may be explained through- 
out by the operation of that animal magnetism 
which is supposed to be discovered. Again, it is 
not impossible that a simple sensation, such as that 
of light, can originate in nerves not designed for them, 
but it is quite impossible that an orderly apprehension 
of a multiplicity of sensations, for example, the reading 
of a letter, should take place in superficial nerves which 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 113 

are not, like the optic nerve, constructed for this com- 
bination of impressions. 

Finally, it is possible that various spiritual functions 
take place more vividly in such pathological conditions 
as diminish the regular intercourse with the external 
world, and thus remove those little cares and the timid- 
ity which in ordinary life stand opposed to the exercise 
of a given faculty. 

In these cases, for example, when a problem is solved 
in somnambulance which was before insoluble, this 
only takes place through the agency of those faculties 
which have been cultivated during the wakeful state. 
That nothing higher is reached in this condition 
than is attainable in a waking condition is shown bv 
the unimportant content of all the disclosures received 
in it, and by the fact that the multitude of such cases 
have not combinedly produced any advance in our 
knowledge. 



CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
THE REALM OF SOULS. 

§1. We have no reason to speak of a soul at all 
except where, without this assumption, facts would be 
incomprehensible. In reality, however, such inspiration 
may extend further than required by this test. An 
inspiration of all things has been conceived of, but this 
thought, although there may be good ground for it, 
has, as yet, remained unfruitful for the explanation of 
individual appearances. 

In sooth, plant-souls have been bespoken with great 
partiality, (Fechner, Nanna, oder ueber das Seelenleben 
der Pflanzen; Leipzig, 1848,) and certainly inspiration 
is not connected with the centralized structure which 
we observe in animals and fail to find in plants. Never- 
theless, the more the organization of the plant, and 
hence the expressions, by means of which alone its 
inner life can become an object of our knowledge, varies 
from that structure, so much the less does it become 
possible to produce from this phantasy (although it may 
be correct) an object of science. The animal kingdom, 
then, alone remains as affording us such an ascending 
series in spiritual life. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 115 

§2, It would be a mistake to consider all animal 
souls as beings originally of the same sort, which either 
were afterwards furnished with powers or were adapted 
simply by the diversity of the external impressions for 
the greater or less development and the peculiarities of 
their spiritual perfection. 

We consider " soul, 1 ' as before, only as a title which 
applies to all those beings which experience their inner 
conditions and the reactions from excitements in the 
form of concepts, susceptions and volitions. 

But that which is expressed by this term in common 
phrase, i. e., the real being of the soul, may differ 
as essentially as we consider gold, silver and lead 
to do, although they only show this diversity by the 
differences in the degree of the same physical qualities, 
weight, cohesion, hardness and others. 

The question may arise where the idea of the 
instinct of animals comes in, to which is to be reck- 
oned not simply remarkable instinctive impulses but 
the entire typical life of all lower animals. Per- 
haps, for example, in the lower classes the souls 
are not prepared to the same extent for learning from 
experience, but, in agreement with their bodily organ- 
ization, have an original content in consciousness by 
which they are regulated in the same way that we 
are sometimes by the accidentally formed ideas of 
dreams. However, this assumption cannot be fruitfully 
pursued. 



116 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

As a farther assistance in the explanation it may be 
added that, in an entirely different organization of the 
nervous system, perhaps the vegetative processes, of 
which we are quite unconscious, are objects of percep- 
tion and starting points for acts which appear reason- 
less to us. Not less probably, there may exist sensa- 
tions of external circumstances, the organs for which 
we do not possess, as, for example, sensitiveness to 
minute electric variations in the environment from 
which might result sensitiveness to changes in the 
weather, not as premonitions of the future, but as 
perceptions of what already exists. Nevertheless, it 
is wrong to refer all animal soul-life to such instinct. 
For certainly there exist in their actions accommoda- 
tions to circumstances in such a way that the same 
reflection and use of experience, upon which our every 
day existence rests must exist in them as well. 

§3. If the understanding and its activity, thought, 
are to serve as the distinguishing characteristics of 
humanity we must insist that the understanding does 
not dimply allow the process of conception to go on 
according to mechanical laws, but puts forth an activity 
which separates those conceptions not belonging 
together and not merely permits those belonging 
together to remain so, but causes them to be at once 
conceived in the form of general notions or laws indic- 
ating that they belong together. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 117 

There is no occasion for referring such comprehensive 
reflection to animals in order to explain the purpose 
seen in their activities, and the way in which they 
adapt themselves to circumstances. The ordinary pro- 
cesses of conception (inasmuch as even they gradually 
associate themselves according to their affinities ) serve 
quite es well for them as they do even for man in the 
greater part of every-day life. 

If the understanding or thought be considered as a 
distinctive character of man, the following circum- 
stances may be mentioned which favor its develop- 
ment: — The long period of helpless childhood, which 
makes the collection of many experiences possible; 
then the skilful n ess of the hand which makes man a 
born experimenter, and permits a multitude of con- 
nected observations; finally, speech, partly because the 
sound images, as symbols of conceptions, serve to fix 
their content and make possible the combination of 
many conceptions into an object of internal contempla- 
tion ; partly, and chiefly, because communication causes 
a further development of each individual process of 
conception through the stimulating, enriching and cor- 
recting supervention of new chains of thought. 

§4. Reason is considered the most definite peculiarity 
of man, and by this is understood the faculty of per- 
ceiving immediately eternal verities in itself whenever 
external experience has furnished to consciousness the 



118 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

facts concerning which it has to form a judgment, par- 
ticularly concerning moral propriety or impropriety. 

We know nothing regarding the primal psychological 
origin of this simplest law of our knowledge and hence 
have reason to consider it one of those reactions in the 
original nature of the spirit which can never be 
explained by the external occasions which are, never- 
theless, necessary that it may be awakened, although 
this explanation has been attempted. 

It is, moreover, indifferent whether they be consid- 
ered as inborn endowments or acquired by experience in 
life, if it only be admitted that, after it has been formed, 
it is the expression of truth, found, indeed, in experi- 
ence, but, as to its content and value, quite independent 
of it. 

§5. Moral truths are designed to govern the will. Of 
this, in like manner, we only speak in the case of man, 
according no volition to the acts of animals because we 
consider their acts as simply the natural results of im- 
pulses but not as acts of a will. Impulses are originally 
but feelings, and chiefly those of displeasure, or of 
unrest. They are usually connected with incitations to 
motion which, after the manner of reflex motions, lead 
to all sorts of motions which have proven, after more 
or fewer errors, the proper ones to allay that discom- 
fort. Then after the feeling of discomfort has com- 
bined with the concept of that act by which the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 119 

discomfort was allayed, a real impulse is formed which 
has a goal to reach, and which sways the acts of the 
soul. In the same way many operations of human life 
are performed which we incorrectly say are willed when, 
in fact, simply no will was exerted to prevent their 
taking place. 

We can only speak correctly of will when the 
motives of various actions and their values are compared 
in full consciousness, and then a choice is made between 
them. It is quite unreasonable to assume that we ex- 
press by the words " I will" no more than is involved 
in the future tense " I shall.' 1 This would only be the 
case if the verb, the future tense of which is used, itself 
means an act in the notion of which there inheres the 
idea cf volition. Unprejudiced observation must admit 
that the peculiar approval of a conceived act or the 
adoption of a resolution, however impossible it may be 
to construe it, is an actual process within us, inexplic- 
able by the mechanism of conception. 

§6. And if this characteristic of the will be conceded 
it would be expected, from the standpoint of explana- 
tory science, that the utterances of the will would be 
determined by definite laws. If ethics assert the free- 
dom of the will psychology need not be appealed to to 
decide, on the basis of, so-called, experience, whether 
this freedom is possible. 

It is not true that we find in our subjective observa- 



120 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion the determining causes of all our acts. Very often 
we find nothing, and, even where we think we have 
found something, it is ambiguous, for if the motives for 
two opposed acts, a and b, have been long compared in 
reflection, and then a decision in favor of a is formed, 
it will always afterward appear as though the reasons 
in favor of a, by their forcefulness had mechanically 
subdued those for b, and this semblance would result 
just the same if the decision in favor of a had been 
really reached by a completely undetermined freedom. 

It must be relegated to metaphysics to inquire 
whether the notion of such freedom is harmonizable 
with our universal apprehension of the world, and to 
practical philosophy to inquire if it promises the 
advantage which caused its employment. 



PART THIRD. 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN. 



C. L. HERRICK. 



STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN. 

PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS. 

§1. The animal body, complex and mysterious as it 
seems, and diverse and complicated as its various organs 
really are, is composed of nothing but cells and cell 
derivatives. 

As stated by Lotze, it is impossible to avoid conceiv- 
ing of man as a unit-entity surrounded by or resident in a 
heterogeneous agglomeration of corporeal units, and 
yet it is impossible to picture to ourselves the way in 
which the various processes which bring about sensa- 
tions and which are really only states in various unlike 
bodily elements transmit the perfected product to our 
spiritual apprehension. However, although there is no 
physical analogy for the process it must be accepted as 
a fact, and we may, at least, be interested to learn just 
what adjustments in the body are necessary to such and 
such spiritual affectations, and through what mediation 
the spirit controls the body. 

The nervous system is no exception to the above 
statement, and all of that wonderful mechanism which 
we call the brain, and which is the physical basis of 
character and the soil in which the soul, in its corporeal 



126 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

relations, is rooted, is a mass of cells and cell products 
like the muscles and bones which do its bidding. 

§2. All of these simplest morphological elements are 
descended, in the case of every individual, from one, or 
rather, two primitive cells — egg and sperm. Only in 
the lowest group of animals, Protozoa, does the entire 
organism consist of but a single cell. In this case the 
cell as a whole performs all the functions devolving 
upon a vital being, and, in the absence of nervous 
organs, the whole animal may be said to do the thinking 
and feeling as well as feeding and moving. This primi- 
tive condition is never entirely lost in any living cell 
however highly differentiated the animal, and however 
restricted, as a consequence, the functions of the indi- 
vidual parts may be. The last function which could be 
given up would be nutrition, for should a cell become 
too highly specialized to take nutriment its life wo aid 
at once be lost. It is found, moreover, that others of 
the original functions persist, though to a different ex- 
tent in different types of cells, in many of the cellular 
elements of the body. In animals of a higher rank 
than the Protozoa differentiation is inaugurated by the 
subdivision of the primitive cell into numerous similar 
bodies and finally into groups of such cells, the func- 
tions of which differ with their position. 

§3. Ordinarily, the first stage in this process is the 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 127 

formation of a loose aggregation of cells called the 
morula, after which a central cavity may be formed by 
the further subdivision and growth of the peripheral 
cells, and a hollow sphere called the blastula results. A 
portion of the cells may now become invaginated so 
that a double sack is formed. In this, or in analagous 
ways, a body, consisting of two germ layers, ectoderm 
and entoderm, arises, and from these two layers of cells 
all the parts of the body are produced by similar pro- 
cesses of invagination or by the migration of groups of 
cells to the cavities between these germ layers. In such 
animals as never pass beyond the gastrula stage the 
ectoderm commonly furnishes the cells charged with 
locomotion and nervous functions, while the entoderm 
is charged with nutrition. Even in higher animals, in 
which these systems are perfectly distinct in adult life, 
the organs of locomotion and enervation spring primar- 
ily from the ectoderm, while the digestive system is 
only the greatly modified entoderm. 

§4. In the process of development, the cells, once 
similar, become greatly modified, and it is only by the 
help of high powers of the microscope and the delicate 
manipulations of modern histology that the cellular 
character can be discovered in many tissues. 

Nervous tissue consists, in general, of two distinct 
elements — ganglion cells and nervous fibres. The 
latter may be considered as simply appendages to the 



128 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

former. The cell, as we have seen, is the unit of struc- 
ture, and as nerve cells are designed to exert their 
influence in all parts of the organism, it is evident that 
when differentiation of the body removes the generators 
of nerve power from immediate contact with the parts 
to be affected there must be provided conducting chan- 
nels of nervous matter to transmit the excitation. This 
is the office of the nerves. 

Nerve cells vary greatly in form and size, but consis 
of a nucleated, pigmented mass of sarcode, usually with 
no true cell wall, and giving off nerve fibres composed 
of a similar substance. Some nerve cells are so large as 
to be visible to the unassisted eye, while others are 
among the most minute morphological elements. 

Nerves are essentially bundles of minute fibres 
insolated by various protective sheaths. As a nerve 
issues from its cell it is usually without a sheath, 
and then consists only of a bundle of nerve fibres con- 
stituting the, so-called, axis cylinder. This, the essential 
portion, is surrounded by two sheaths which unite, 
node-like, at intervals. Each nerve is thus a bundle of 
primitive fiibrillse surrounded by the medular sheath 
and the primitive sheath of Swarm. 

§5. Of both these elements, ganglion cells and nerve 
fibres, there are two sorts, motory and sensory. All the 
various procssses of mental life may be divided into two 
primary groups ; first, those concerned with influences 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 129 

from without and, second, those which are designed to 
exert influences upon the bodily organs. So far, at 
least, as the simpler acts of mind are concerned, they 
may be said to consist of shocks from without and reac- 
tions from within, hence we expect to find, as we do, 
that the centripital and the centrifugal channels are 
connected by linking nervous threads. The simplest 
connection of a nervous system will then picture to us 
a sensitive apparatus upon the surface of the body which 
selects certain of the many external irritants to trans- 
mit to the brain. Here the nerve terminates in a 
ganglion cell which is excited to ac'ion, the kind of 
action being determined b}~ the character of the stim- 
ulus ; its modification in the organ of sense, but particu- 
larly by the structure of the ganglion cell itself. We 
must avoid considering the activity of the ganglion cell 
as caused simply by the impulse which is received from 
the nerve. The nerve furnishes the occasion — the form 
of the reaction depends upon the structure and position 
of the cell. The third link in this chain of processes 
is the transmission of this new and different stimulus to 
a ganglion seated at the root of a motory nerve. Here 
again it is conceivable that the character of the excite- 
ment is completely changed in a manner dependent 
very largely upon the position and structure of the 
motory ganglion. The last nervous process is a state 
of excitement transmitted through the motory nerve 
which acts like an electric shock upon various muscles 



130 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

at the peripheral termini causing contractions in the 
sensitive myolon material. 

All the above processes are explicable according to 
physical analogies, but this does not explain in the least 
how any of these processes are brought into relation 
with the soul so as to excite in consciousness an appre- 
hension of external happenings or internal states. 

We discover from experience that sensations from 
various organs as well as the most diverse mental states 
succeed in producing activities in one and the same 
motory centre, so we are prepared for the discovery of 
anatomy that there is the most intimate anastamosis of 
the various ganglion cells, so that the simple picture 
drawn above must be filled in with many details. No 
ganglion is affected without transmitting more or less 
of its agitation to neighbouring parts, and the intimacy 
of connection is different in different sets of cells ; 
thus the perfection of the brain as an organ of mind 
depends as much upon the perfection of the correlation 
and subordination of the various parts as upon the size 
and delicacy of its material. 

CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS. 

§6. Before taking up the more intimate description 
of the brain, it may be well to mention some of the 
chemical peculiarities of nervous matter. Although 
little is known of the composition of the materials in 
which nervous functions reside, it is at least certain that 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 131 

they are very complex and in a state of very unstable 
equilibrium. Of these substances Lecithin, Cerebin 
and Cholestrin, having the formulas C44HjoNP09, 
C37H33NO3, and C26H44O, respectively, are most im- 
important. Lecithin is a substance resembling fatj 
composed of the radical of the fatty acids, phosphoric 
acid, and clycerine, united with the amine base, 
Neurine. In addition to these are various albuminous 
compounds from which the above may be derived. 
Another substance, Nuclein, is among the elements 
but is found in the nuclei of all active cells, so that it 
cannot be reckoned among the necessary constituents 
of nervous matter. The primitive fibrillge, as well as 
the nuclei of the ganglion cells are rich in albuminous 
matter, while the protoplasm of the ganglia and the 
nerves seems to be largely made up of Lecithin and 
Cerebrin. This much is clear, that the physical force 
liberated in all nervous processes is derived from the 
decomposition of the highly complex and unstable 
molecules of the nervous tissues. The materials needed 
to supply the waste thus produced are afforded by the 
blood, although some of the specific nervous compounds 
seem to be the result of a synthesis produced on the 
spot where they are needed from materials richly sup- 
plied by the general circulation. (For a valuable dis- 
cussion of the way the force resulting from the 
chemical changes taking place in the nervous matter of 
ganglia and nerve cells is applied, or the " physiological 



132 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

mechanics of nerve-substance," see Wundt, Grundzuege 
der Physiologischen Psych ologie, Chapter VI., under 
the above caption. ) A further discussion of this sub- 
ject is not here permissible. 

FORM AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENTRAL 
PORTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

§7. The earliest condition of the nervous system 
which we need to notice finds the brain and spinal 
cord in the form of a hollow cylinder somewhat 
expanded and modified anteriorly. This front or brain 
portion now begins to grow much more rapidly than 
the rest and its walls expand and become variously 
folded upon themselves and almost all of the compli- 
cated mechanism of the brain in man is derived from 
repetitions of this process of in- and evagination of 
the walls of the primitive neural tube. Three expan- 
sions appear at first, forming the first indications of 
the differentiation about to take place. The anterior of 
these prominences divides to form the cerebral hemi- 
spheres and optic thalmi, the middle one forms the 
optic lobes or corpus bigeminum, while the posterior 
one produces the cerebellum and medula oblongata. 
(Fig. 1, Plate I.) 

The separate chambers thus formed are still connected 
with each other and the central cavity of the spinal 
cord. (Fig. 2, Plate I.) 

Now begins a separation of the above-described 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 133 

organs into pairs, a process which is nearly complete in 
the case of the hemispheres; the thalmi optic open out- 
wardly; the separation is simply indicated in the case of 
the lobi optici; while the cerebellum divides and again 
unites. As a result of this process, of course, the cavity 
within is greatly modified, that contained in the hemi- 
spheres becomes separated into two, called the first and 
second ventricles, that portion within the thalmi is 
called the third ventricle. The opening in the medula 
is called the fourth ventricle and is connected by a nar- 
row canal (the aquceductus sylvii) with the third ven- 
tricle. There is also a small cavity connecting the 
cerebellum with the brain basis. The most remarkable 
change which now takes place is the change of position 
in the anterior portion of the nervous axis. At first 
the brain is obviously the continuation of the spinal 
cord, and so remains in fishes and amphibians {¥ig 3, 
Plate I), but in higher vertebrates great flextures 
change the original position, and great and unequal 
growth obscures the original relations. Two important 
changes thus brought about may be mentioned. First, 
the excessive development of the cerebrum causes it to 
extend beyond and overlap first the corpus bigeminum 
and finally the cerebellum; second, the growth also 
causes foldings and impressed lines called fissures, 
the first of which to appear is thefissura silvii. Another 
fissure is opposed to the silvian and nearly at right 
angles to it — the fissure of Rolando or medium sulcus. 



134 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

By this means the cerebrum is divided into lobes, of 
which the frontal, parietal and occipital are most 
important. In man, the whole surface of the cerebrum 
is thrown into convolutions which conform more or less 
to the direction of the principal sulci mentioned (Fig. 
4, Plate I). 

The spinal cord is that portion of the primitive ner- 
vous tube which changes least, but, notwithstanding, 
great changes in form and structure are encountered 
here also. The central canal becomes reduced in size 
and the whole is divided into two symmetrical halves by 
a longitudinal fissure both before and behind. These 
halves are connected by two commissures or nerve 
bundles — the anterior and posterior commissures. The 
substance of the cord is composed of grey material or 
ganglion cells collected in two masses in the centre of 
white external matter con- 
sisting ot threads passing 
forward toward the brain. 
The nerves which spr 
from the anterior or vem- 
tral side are motory while 
the posterior roots sup- 
ply sensitive nerves. (Fig. 

*Fig 5.— Transverse Section of the Lower Part of the Spinal Cord. 

b, Anterior; c, Posterior median groove; g, Spinal canal; k, Posterior; 
i, Anterior nerve roots; d, Anterior cornns, with larger cells; e, Posterior 
cornus, with small ganglion cells; /, Anterior; h, Posterior commissuies. 




OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



135 



The medula oblongata is simply a somewhat modified 
anterior portion of the spinal cord, and the rather 
simple arrangement of the nervous fibres is here ex- 
changed for a more complicated order. The longitudinal 
fibres group themselves into various bundles called the 
pyramids, the lateral and posterior bundles, which 
latter forms the funiculus gracilis, funiculus cuneatus, 
etc. Upon the pyramids is seated a pair of peculiar 
prominences called the olives. 

The cerebellum is differentiated early, and, like the 
other parts of the brain mantle, as distinguished from 
its basis, consists of an external or cortical layer of 
grey or cellular matter, which in man, is thrown into 
strong convolutions, thus presenting in section the 
regular figure known as the arbor vitse. The cere- 
bellum receives several distinct bundles of nerves,, the 
lower of which forms the processus ad med. oblonga- 
tum, the upper being the processus ad corpus bigem- 
inum. From the sides 



issue the processi ad 
pontem which unite to 
form a band of fibres 
bridging over the med- 
ula, and hence called 
the pons valor i (Fig. 
6.*) 




*Fig. 6.— Basal portion of Brain from above. (A portion of the cerebellum 
is reiroved.) Th, Thalmi optici; Con, Conarium ; n a d t, Cori.us bigemiimm 



136 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

The spinal cord is produced forward after passing, as 
we have seen, through the medula, as the two crura 
which support, like stalks, the hemispheres. Seated 
upon the crura, and forming with them parts of the 
basis of the brain is the corpus bigeminum. The 
position of the thalmi optici has been already referred 
to as forming the walls of the third ventricle. From 
the front of this chamber two small openings, the 
foramina of Monro, lead into the two ventricles of the 
hemispheres. There is a small appendage below the 
thalmi called the hypophysis. The two hemispheres 
are united in mammals by a strong, thick band — the 
corpus callosum. The crura, or extensions of the axis 
of the spinal cord, unite with the hemispheres, and 
near this point of union is accumulated a large amount 
of grey cellular matter, forming a prominence projecting 
into the lateral ventricles called the corpus striatum. 
We need not proceed farther with the description of 
anatomical details. 

The histology as well as the configuration of the cere- 
bral elements associate them in two groups. The first, 
consisting of those parts which are the direct continua- 
tion of the spinal cord, constitute the basis of the brain, 
and agree with that organ in having the grey matter 



(nates and testes); Ps, Pedunculitis cerebelli superior (Processus ad Corp. 
"bigeminum); Pm, Peduuculus cerebelli medialis (Processus ad pontem. 
Between Ps. and Pm. isseenthe Pednnculus cerebelli inferior— Process ad 
med. oblongatam); g, Girdling fibres; fc, Funiculus cuneatus; fg, Funic- 
ulus gracilis; s., Funiculus lateralis; C- Cerebellum. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 137 

arranged about the canal, or at least, medianly, while 
that part of the brain, including the cerebrum and cere- 
bellum, which forms a covering for the others, has the 
cellular elements arranged cortically in a more or less 
thick layer, below which are white fibres passing down- 
ward toward the base of the brain to find exit with the 
medula. The cortex of the brain is about 2 mm. thick 
and, as a whole, as well as in its cellular elements, is 
invested with a web of delicate threads of connective 
tissue. This neuroglia serves not only to isolate the 
cells, bat to convey bloodvessels to each individual cell. 
These cells, which are, perhaps, the most important of the 
cerebral organs, are arranged in layers, the superficial 
layers containing smaller, the deeper layers larger cells. 
The nerves coming from peripheral parts first, 
after reinforcement in the base of the brain, con- 
tribute their stimuli to the superficial or sensory 
cells. The resulting activity in these smaller cells 
seems then to be imparted the larger or motory 
ganglion cells, from which the impulses there gener- 
ated are conducted again to the base of the brain 
and, after correlation and various modifications, 
an impulse to motion is transmitted to the appropriate 
muscles. 

Nervous threads are thus either centripital (sensory) 
or centrifugal (motory) — names derived from the 
direction in which the nerve is adapted to transmit 
impressions. 



138 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE BRAIN AND 
OTHER PARTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

§8. The sensory nerves spring from the posterior 
part of the spinal cord while the motory threads arise 
anteriorly, and the continuation of these nerves toward 
the brain within the spinal cord maintain, in general, the 
same relations. There is, however, a crossing of a cer- 
tain portion of the fibres, especially in the case of sen- 
sory nerves. This is a provision against accidents. In 
general, however, the anterior and posterior nerve 
bundles represent the nerve roots of the corresponding 
sides while the lateral bundles contain fibres from both. 

By dividing the spinal cord on one side there results 
a total loss of motion and increased irritability on that 
side, and diminished power of motion and irritability on 
the side opposite. In the medula, also, there is a cross- 
ing of fibres from one side of the body to the other 
which occurs in different sets of nerves at different 
points. The cutting of these nerves above this point 
causes total loss of motion to the portion of the oppo- 
site side of the body supplied by their termini. 

The cerebellum is connected directly with the spinal 
cord by the fibres of the processus ad med. oblongatum. 
The processus ad pontem sends fibres down to end in the 
grey cells of the bridge from which connection is 
afforded with the corpus striatum and other anterior 
centres. The fibres passing toward the cerebrum enter 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 139" 

the cells of the red nucleus of the crown of the crura. 
It is not known that any of the fibres pass directly to 
the cortical substance of the cerebrum. It therefore 
appears that sensory fibres transmit stimuli to the cere- 
bellum which do not produce sensations because they 
never reach directly that part of the brain over which 
consciousness bears sway, but that the excitations are 
transferred to ganglion cells at the base of the brain 
where the stimuli necessary to produce motion are set 
into operation immediately. If this be the case we are 
prepared to understand how the cerebellum comes to be 
the seat of reflex and automatic activities as is usually 
maintained. Thus the function of the cerebellum seems 
to be in part the same as that of the grey ganglion cells 
of the spinal cord, which, in like manner, form second- 
ary centres independent of the consciousness through 
which sensory stimuli switch off, as it were, from the 
regular routes to the brain, to be transferred t o appro- 
priate motory fibres. 

From the optic thalmi, corpus striatum, and other 
basal portions of the brain fibres pass to all parts of the 
cortex of the cerebrum, and, as some recent authors claim, 
the former is receptive to sensory nerves, optic, auditory 
and olfactory, as well as those of ordinary sensation, 
while the latter is the starting point for motory nerves. 
It is farther assumed that after the sensations are trans- 
formed into appropiate stimuli and these are co-ordin- 
ated they are transferred directly to the small cells in 



140 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

the periphery of the cerebral cortex giving rise to sensa- 
tion. Then, it may be, new forces are developed, accom- 
panied by chemical decomposition and the evolution 
of heat. These forces 
are conveyed along 
the nervous threads 
springing from the 
small cells to the 
larger deep - seated 
cells of the cere- 
bral cortex, (Fig. 7.*) Fi & 7 ' 
and here, as in new generators, mofcory impulses are 
produced, and these are conve}^ed to the corpus striatum 
where correlations and combinations are affected, which 
result in the production of more or less complicated and 
prolonged motions of the body, in which they are 
assisted and partially controlled by unconscious pro- 
cesses carried on in the grey matter of the cerebellum 
and spinal cord. 

Such, most simply expressed, is the present view of 
simple cerebral activities. The detailsf which fill in 
and complete this outline are abstruse, and only obtain- 
able by recondite researches. 




*Fig. 7— Diagram of the Courses of Nervous Stimuli, according to the 
theory of Luys. 

Th., Opticthalmi; CS-, Corpus striatum; 0, Eye; a, Ear; /, Nerve 
transmitting ordinary sensations; I, Small (sensory) cortical cell; II, 
Large (motory) cortical cell. The course of the currents indicated by arrows. 

tThe above statements with reference to the functions of the optic 
thalmi are taken from Luys and may be found in Recherches sur le systeme 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 141 

PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. 

§9. The simplest f unction of the central organs of 
nervous system is reflex activity. In its simplest form 
this would consist of the transference of a sensory 
stimulus directly to a motory nerve. Practically, how- 
ever, it is necessary that the sensory affection should 
undergo a change before it is suited to act upon a 
muscle. Organs for this purpose, as we have seen, are 
the ganglion cells of the spinal cord, medula and cere- 
bellum. 

Simple reflex activities lodge in the spinal cord, while 
those of a higher order occur in the medula. Breathing, 
swallowing and the beating of the heart are such activ- 
ities. Certain conditions in the capillaries of the lungs, 
for example, produce excitements in nerves passing to 
the medula which, without the aid of consciousness or 
of the will, produce the necessary muscular exertion to 
cause inhalation, while, ordinarily, no such effort is 
exerted in expiration. Reflex activities are found to be 
intimately connected, and this is explained by the vari- 
ous intimate anastamosings which takes place between 
the cells of the medula. Thus quickened breathing 

nerveux; or, in English, in the Brain and its Functions, by the same author, 
forming one of the volumes of the International Scientific Series. The writer 
is forced to admit t hat these views are far from proven, and, indeed, are con- 
tradicted by the results of many experiments. Nevertheless there can be no 
doubt that such a relation as is here described exists between some of the 
cells in the brain, and if not these, it matters little for the present purpose. 
Iu the case of the corpus striatum facts seem unanimous. 



142 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

causes acceleration of the pulse, and certain affections 
of the gustatory nerve are accompanied by reflex 
motions in the mimic muscles of the face. It is found 
that the brain exerts a restricting influence upon the 
reflex activities so that the removal of the hemispheres 
increases the reflex actions. This may, perhaps, be 
explained by supposing that that part of the stimuli 
which would normally be transmitted to the cerebrum 
is deflected upon the subordinate fibres leading to reflex 
centres. m 

Automatic motions are a subordinate class of reflex 
activities in which the stimulus does not come from 
without, i. e., is not adapted to produce sensation, but 
consists of a change in the condition of adjacent inter- 
nal organs. 

The vast majority of such motions seem to be pro- 
duced by changes in the circulation or in the blood 
itself. The tensity of the muscles of the capillaries and 
the beating of the heart is regulated automatically, as is 
the breathing in part. 

Experiments seem to prove that the cerebellum is 
designed, through the correlation of various sensations, 
for the regulation of voluntary motion as well as for 
certain reflex activities of a different sort. The removal 
of the cerebrum causes dizziness, uncertain gait and, 
often, undesigned motions, although the will is easily 
exerted, and the connection of the motor roots with the 
-corpus striatum is unbroken. 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



143 



Of the functions of the cerebrum it is not necessary 
to speak farther. What the physiological basis of 'the 
higher spiritual functions is we are quite unable to say. 

The accompanying diagram indicates portions of the 
cerebrum which have 
been found, with greater 
or less certainty to be 
connected with the 
perception of certain 
classes of sensations or 
the production of spec- 
ific motions. (Fig. 8.*) F| £ & 




DEVELOPMENT OF SENSORY FUNCTIONS. 



§10. Our knowledge of sensory functions is derived 
from investigations of the anatomy of the external 
organs of sense, but also in part from the behaviour of 
animals when affected by different stimuli. Such 
investigations seem to place it beyond peradventure 
that all the more complicated sensations and sensory 
organs are derived from the differentiation of primitive 
sensations and organs originally identical. 

Ordinary sensation, including the sense of touch, of 
temperature, and muse alar sense, seems to be the 
starting point. 

*Fig. 8.— Motory Centres of the Brain. 
A, Motory centre of Facialis arcl Hypog ossis region ; B, Motory centre 
•of arm muscles; C, Motory centre of leg muscles; D, Motory centre of 
speech; E, Sensory centre of speech; F, Visual region (?); S, Visual region, 



144 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Ln the most lowly animals the sarcode which constit- 
utes the entire body must be the seat of every sensation 
by which the animal can be affected. It is assumed 
that those irritants which produces motions in the sar- 
code also give rise to sensations, but that these will 
exhibit as diversity from each other in proportion as one 
part of the body is different from another. Light prob- 
ably is perceived only as warmth, and even those pigment 
flecks in the Infusoria which undoubtedly serve to absorb 
and thus condense the light may not give rise to the 
sensation of light. 

The development history of the organs of sense sup- 
ports the idea that all sensory functions are derived 
from those of ordinary sensation. 

The development proceeds in two ways; first, the 
sense of touch becomes more highly differentiated by 
the development of special tactile organs; second, 
organs adapted for specific sensations are produced, so 
that the nerve termini become sensitive to special 
stimuli, such as light, sounds, tastes and odors. 

In all cases, however, these organs are produced by 
modification of the outer surface of the body. 

The development of the tactile sense is earliest, and 
goes hand and hand with the production of special 
organs of locomotion. The clothing of cilia found in 
the Infusoria serves both purposes at once. In the 
case of insects we find sensory organs composed of rods 
seated on the enlarged termini of nerves, the rods 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 145 

being simply designed to communicate motions to the 
sensitive cell below. (Fig. 9.) 

This constitutes a transition to the more highly 
developed tactile organs in which epithelial cells of 
peculiar form enclose or include the termini of sensory 
nerves. The teeth, nails and vibrissa? are examples of 
accessory tactile organs in higher animals which are 
not themselves sensitive, but stand in intimate relation 
to the nerves. 

In cases where no special apparatus is developed — and 
this applies to the majority of our sensory nerves — the 
ends of the nerves seem to be free between the epith- 
elial cells. 

Special organs of touch occur in the skin and in vari- 
ous inner organs, as the capsules of the joints and the 
mesentaries. Tactile spheres consist of two or more 
cells in a capsule, between which are disc-like organs 
usually parallel to the surface. (Fig. 10.) The office of 
these organs appears frequently to be the intensification 
of the pressure, etc., or its direct application to the 
nerve. 

Among the specific sensory organs those of taste and 
smell seem morphologically most nearly related to the 
organs of touch. Among lowly forms both these 
senses seem to be lodged in the same organs or the 
functions are not yet distinct. Organs, not only for 
recognizing but for producing odors, seem to be present 
in certain insects, as butterflies, and serve to assist the 



146 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

sexual instincts. The termini of tlie olfactory nerve 
correspond to the simple condition of the organ of touch 
where it consists of rod-like bodies seated on the nerve 
cell. In the sense of taste there is greater differentia- 
tion and the cells which constitute the termini of the 
nerves are enclosed in beaker-like groups of cells which 
are situated below the surface. Similar organs under 
the skin of fishes have been thought to indicate a sixth 
sense. (Figs. 11 and 12.) 

The organ of hearing seems to have been derived from 
the transformation of a ciliated surface. It is possible 
that even in the ciliated Protozoa the cilia, which are 
so easily affected by sound waves, may render them 
recognizable. Most invertebrates and some vertebrates 
possess ears which consist of cavities lined with cilia 
and containing otoliths which seem to communicate 
the oscilations produced by sound waves to the cilia and 
thence to the nerve. An advance on this simple ear, 
which can hardly be supposed to distinguish different 
tones is furnished by such as have the cilia or rods of 
different sizes and lengths, each length apparently cor- 
responding to a definite wave length. Hensen (in the 
ZeUschriftfur Wissenschafthche Zoologie, xiii, p. 374) 
claims to have demonstrated by immediate observation 
that different filaments respond to differences in pitch. 
In many insects otoliths are wanting, but the rods are 
more solid and are covered by a tense membrane 
acting like a tympanum. The various classes of verte- 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 147 

brates, beginning with the fishes, exhibit a gradual dif- 
ferentiation and increase in complexity. The auditory 
sac, which is usually bi-lobed. develops on one side the 
semicircular canals, and on the other the cochlea. (Fig. 
13.) The perfect ear is a wonderfully complex organ, 
the physiological significance of the various parts being 
but imperfectly understood. It has been supposed that 
certain modified epithelial cells covered with cilia of 
various lengths serve to record the Varying pitch of 
tones. This, so-called, organ of corti has been compared 
to a harp, each string of which is attuned to respond to 
a definite tone. The most credible hypothesis seems to 
be that the analysis of a harmony into different tones 
is accomplished by the membrane lining the cochlea, 
the varying width and tensity of which may make it 
better adapted for the purpose than a series of rods of 
varying length. Wundt supposes musical tones are 
distinguished in this way while tones which are com- 
posed of irregular vibrations, i. e., noises, may be recog- 
nized by the bundles of hairs before mentioned. Other 
parts of the organ seem to be designed to concentrate 
the sound waves, or to serve as dampers upon the 
receiving organ. 

The organ of vision consists essentially of a receiving 
nerve and deposits of light-absorbing pigment. If the 
pigment flecks found in certain Infusoria, and especially 
in many low worms where they are closely connected 
with the central ganglia, are really eyes, we have in them 



148 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

examples of this simplest condition. In rotifers, etc., 
the cells in which the pigment is deposited are peculi- 
arly modified and furnished with rods which are prim- 
itive retinal rods — a kind of structure present in all 
higher eyes, and indicating a power of distinguishing 
between various visual impressions. The next step in 
the development is marked by the addition of modified, 
transparent cells serving as lenses to concentrate light 
upon the retina cells. (Fig. 14.) In the compound 
eyes of insects a large nuumber of lenses, each fitted to 
but a single rod or retina cell are grouped together like 
a mosaic and it is necessary to suppose that the frag- 
mentary images produced by each lense are united in 
the central ganglion into a continuous representation 
of the field of vision. This theory is called that 
of mosaic vision. The eye of man is not modeled 
after thecompcund eye of insects, but upon the simpler 
type offered by worms and mollusks. 

The pin-hole camera, a device by which a dim image 
is produced in a dark chamber by rays of light entering 
through a minute aperture, is mimiced by the eye of 
the nautilus. (Fig. 15.) A second chamber in which 
is developed a lense changes the pin-hole camera to a 
photographer's camera in which lenses secure the dis- 
tinctness of the image, while the larger size of the 
aperture greatly increases its brightness. An illustra- 
tion of this sort of an eye is furnished by the higher 
Cephalopoda (Cuttlefish). (Fig. 16.) 



OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 149 

The eye of vertebrates differs from that of the cuttle- 
fish chiefly in the fact that the elements of the retina 
are arranged in the reverse position. This is due to the 
greater complexity in the embryological development 
of the former, so that the epithelial layer out of which 
the retina is formed suffers a double instead of a single 
invagination. 

The accompanying diagram (Fig. 17) indicates the 
arrangement of the various elements of the retina. 
It is proven that the rods and spindles are sensitive 
to light while the ganglion cells and the filaments of the 
optic nerves are not at all so, though they are more im- 
mediately exposed to its action. The ends of the rods 
are imbued with a purple red pigment which is exces- 
sively sensitive to the influence of light, changing rapidly 
in color when exposed to it. This pigment is constantly 
renewed by the process of nutrition during the life of 
the animal. 

The optic nerves pass to the corpus bigeminum 
and usually cross, or form a chiasma in their passage. 
This crossing is only complete when the fields of the 
two eyes are quite distinct. The larger the part of the 
field of vision the two eyes have in common, the more 
near the optic-nerve fibres are to being equally divided. 
(Tig. 13.) In man it is found that the fibres passing 
to the inner half of the two retinas cross while those 
from the outer half pass directly to the portion of the 
corpus bigeminum on the same side. 



150 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

A destruction of one half of the corpus begem- 
inum results therefore in the blindness of half of 
each retina, while binocular vision is still possible for 
the remaining halves. 

The above outline touches upon a few points which 
may serve to introduce the reader to a line of study 
second to none at the present time in interest and 
importance. For a careful review of the whole field 
refer to Wundt's Physiological Psychology. 



PLATE I. 

Fig. 1. — Embryo of Chick. 

Fb, Fore-brain; Mb, Mid-brain; Mb\ Cerebellum; 
Mb 2 , Medula oblongata; Av, Auditory vesicle; Pv. 
Primitive vertebrae; Mf, Mesial or neural fold; T, Cau- 
dal lobe*. 

Fig. 2. — Longitudinal Section of Brain of Frog. 

1, 2, Lateral ventricles, or chambers of the hemi- 
spheres; 3, Chamber of optic thalmus, or third ventricle; 
4, Chamber of cerebellum; 5, Fourth ventricle; as, 
Aquaeductus Silvii. 

Fig. 3. — Brain of Fish. (Polypterus.) 

A, From above; B, From the side; 0, Olfactory 
lobes; H, Hemisphaees; Th, Optic thalmi; Lo, Lobi 
optici; Ce, Cerebellum; Mo, Medula oblongata. 

Fig. 4. — Brain of Human Foetus, at seven months. 

F, Frontal lobe; P, Parietal lobe; 0, Occipital lobe; 
T, Temporal lobe; S, Fissura Silvii; B, Sulcus of 
Rolando; MO, Medula; C, Cerebellum. 

Fig. 9. — Sensory apparatus in the Probosis of Fly. 

n, Nerve; g, Ganglion cell; r, Tactile rods. 

Fig. 18. — Diagram of the Course of Nerve Fibres, 
passing from the retina to the brain. 



PLATE I. 




PLATE II. 

Fig. 10. — Tactile bodies. 

A 1 B, Tactile spheres from the bill of a duck; C, Tac- 
tile body imbedded in papilla of human skin; 0, Epi 
dermis; w, Nerve; s, Tactile body. 

Fig. 11. — A, An epithelium cell with two olfactory 
cells, from Proteus; g, ganglionic portion of olfactory 
cell; B, Epithelium and olfactory cells of man. 

Fig. 12. — Gustatory Cup from Mouth of Babbit. 

A, Entire; B, Isolated sensory cells from such a cup. 

Fig. 13. — Diagrams of the Development of the Laby- 
rinth in (A) Fishes, (B) Birds, (C) Mammals; F, 
Utriculus; S, Sacculus; C, Cochlea; J?, Recessus laby- 
rinthi. 

Fig. 14. — Eye of Spider in Section. • 

L, Lense; e, Epidermal layer; s, Rods; #, Ganglion 
cells; p, Pigment. 

Fig. 15. — Diagramatic Section of the Eye- of Nautilus. 

i?, Retina; ow, Optic nerve. 

Fig. 16. — Diagramatic Section of the Eye of a Cuttle- 
fish. 

L, L 2 , Lenses; el Eye-lids; i?, Retina; og, Optic 
ganglion; ow, Optic nerve; int, Integument. 

Fig. 17. — Section of Human Retina. 

i, Membrana limitans interna; g 1 , Ganglion layer; 
# 2 , Second ganglion layer; # 3 , Third layer of ganglion 
cells; fr, b\ Granular layers; a, Rod and spindle layer; 
e, External pigment layer. 



PLATE II. 




Fig. IB. * 



JIM 28 1907 



